Social marketplace digital worth score

ABSTRACT

A method and system are disclosed for managing catalog resources within a social commerce environment. Users are referred by a plurality of affiliates to a social commerce marketplace system. Once referred, the users are presented with a customized social commerce storefront that is associated with an individual affiliate. Each of the customized social commerce storefronts comprises a micro catalog of purchasable products, which is a subset of a master catalog comprising a set of available products. Social data associated with the user and catalog data associated with the purchasable products is processed to generate product catalog data to the user, which is then provided to the user. The user reviews the social commerce content and selects individual purchasable products for purchase.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S.Provisional Application No. 61/485,767, filed May 13, 2011, entitled“Social Marketplace.” U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/485,767includes exemplary systems and methods and is incorporated by referencein its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

Embodiments of the invention relate generally to information handlingsystems. More specifically, embodiments of the invention provide amethod and system for managing catalog resources within a socialcommerce environment.

2. Description of the Related Art

As the value and use of information continues to increase, individualsand businesses seek additional ways to process and store information.One option available to users is information handling systems. Aninformation handling system generally processes, compiles, stores,and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or otherpurposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of theinformation. Because technology and information handling needs andrequirements vary between different users or applications, informationhandling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled,how the information is handled, how much information is processed,stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the informationmay be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in informationhandling systems allow for information handling systems to be general orconfigured for a specific user or specific use such as financialtransaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage,or global communications. In addition, information handling systems mayinclude a variety of hardware and software components that may beconfigured to process, store, and communicate information and mayinclude one or more computer systems, data storage systems, andnetworking systems.

These same information handling systems have played a key role in therapid growth of electronic commerce on the Internet. One known aspect ofelectronic commerce is affiliate networks, which allow online merchantsto reach a larger audience through participation in various affiliateprograms. Typically, potential customers are referred to the merchant'swebsite from an affiliate's web site, which receives a share of anyresulting sale as compensation for the referral. Various affiliatenetwork services and benefits generally include referral tracking,reporting tools, payment processing, and access to a large base ofparticipants. Over time, affiliate networks have made progress insimplifying the process of registering affiliate participants fore ormore merchant affiliate programs. However, affiliates still faceintegration challenges when attempting to provide their users acustomized subset of the merchant's website.

In recent years, information handling systems have also beeninstrumental in the widespread adoption of social media into themainstream of everyday life. Social media commonly refers to the use ofweb-based technologies for the creation and exchange of user-generatedcontent for social interaction. As such, it currently accounts forapproximately 22% of all time spent on the Internet. More recently,various aspects of social media have become an increasingly popular forenabling customer feedback, and by extension, have likewise evolved intoa viable marketing channel for vendors. This new marketing channel,sometimes referred to as “social marketing,” has proven to not only havea higher customer retention rate than traditional marketing channels,but to also provide higher demand generation “lift.”

Currently, social marketing is typically limited to providing a linkfrom a social media environment to the home page of a merchant'swebsite, where a referred user can then search for a recommendedproduct. In some cases, the user may be referred to a predeterminedproduct page or listing. However, no known ability is currentlyavailable for a social marketer to refer a user to a customized subsetof a merchant's products. Furthermore, social marketers generally lackreal-time integration with the merchant's site. As a result, theytypically have to rely upon the merchant's traditional methods ofreferral tracking, reporting, accounting and payment processing.Moreover, there is a lack of simplified integration between merchantwebsites, affiliate networks, and social media environments, which posechallenges in realizing the promise of social marketing.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

We provide a service to individuals, SMB and enterprises that allow themto give us access to their social networks, analytics to their sites,site content, emails and then we extract information (e.g., keywords)and match it up against our algorithm. Advertisements are then processedwith the algorithm to generate a potential dollar worth score for theirsocial property to get a higher SEO score, ad clicks, and product sales.The score will allow them to see what a site is worth if the user plansto ever buy or sell it.

A method and system are disclosed for managing catalog resources withina social commerce environment. In various embodiments, users arereferred by a plurality of affiliates to a social commerce marketplacesystem. Once referred, the users are presented with a customized socialcommerce storefront that is associated with an individual affiliate.Each of the customized social commerce storefronts comprises a microcatalog of purchasable products, which is a subset of a master catalogcomprising a set of available products.

In these and other embodiments, social data associated with the user andcatalog data associated with the purchasable products is processed togenerate product catalog data to the user, which is then provided to theuser. In one embodiment, the product catalog data corresponds to asubset of the purchasable products. In another embodiment, the productcatalog data is provided to the user within a user interface (UI) windowof a widget. In yet another embodiment, the user's social data isprocessed to generate social graph data, which in turn is processed togenerate keyword and theme data. The keyword and theme data is thenprocessed to identify a subset of the product catalog data, which isthen provided to the user.

In one embodiment, the product catalog data is associated with a socialcommerce campaign. In another embodiment, the product catalog data isassociated with various types of social commerce content such as productreviews, ratings and user blogs. In this embodiment, the social commercecontent is concurrently provided with the product catalog data to theuser. In this and other embodiments, the user reviews the socialcommerce content and selects individual purchasable products forpurchase

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention may be better understood, and its numerousobjects, features and advantages made apparent to those skilled in theart by referencing the accompanying drawings. The use of the samereference number throughout the several figures designates a like orsimilar element.

FIG. 1 is a generalized illustration of the components of an informationhandling system as implemented in the system and method of the presentinvention;

FIG. 2 is a simplified block diagram showing the implementation of asocial commerce marketing system;

FIG. 3 is a simplified block diagram showing a high-level architectureof a social commerce marketplace system;

FIGS. 4 a-c are a simplified block diagram showing a plurality of socialcommerce modules implemented within a plurality of host environments;

FIG. 5 is a generalized flow chart of social commerce initiationoperations performed on behalf of an affiliate;

FIGS. 6 a-d are generalized depictions of social commerce initiationoperations performed on behalf of an affiliate within a plurality ofuser interface windows;

FIG. 7 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of social commerceoperations;

FIG. 8 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of social commerceadvertising network management operations;

FIGS. 9 a-b show the creation of an affiliate offer within a userinterface window;

FIG. 10 shows the display of affiliate offers within a user interfacewindow;

FIG. 11 shows the display of affiliate network feeds and associatedoffers within a user interface window;

FIG. 12 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of contentsyndication operations;

FIG. 13 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of billboardmanagement operations;

FIG. 14 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of productcategorization operations;

FIG. 15 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of productmoderation operations;

FIG. 16 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of socialcommerce recommendation operations;

FIG. 17 shows the selection of a merchant's products within a userinterface window to generate an offer;

FIG. 18 shows the creation of an offer to a social media user within auser interface window;

FIG. 19 shows a product offer and its corresponding social commerce datawithin a user interface window;

FIG. 20 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of socialcommerce community management operations;

FIG. 21 shows the display of social commerce data associated with apredetermined affiliate within a user interface window;

FIG. 22 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of socialcommerce multilevel marketing management operations;

FIG. 23 shows the display of social commerce data associated with apredetermined multilevel marketing affiliate within a user interfacewindow;

FIG. 24 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of socialcommerce listening operations;

FIG. 25 shows the display of social commerce data associated with aplurality of affiliates marketing a plurality of merchant productswithin a user interface window;

FIG. 26 shows the display of social commerce data associated with aplurality of merchant products within a user interface window;

FIG. 27 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of social scorewidget creation operations;

FIG. 28 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of social scorewidget recommendation operations;

FIG. 29 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of socialidentity acquisition operations;

FIGS. 30 a-b are a generalized flow chart of the performance of searchengine optimization (SEO) goal attainment operations;

FIG. 31 shows a ranked list of keywords within a user interface windowthat are predicted to result in the highest amount of traffic andcorresponding conversion rates;

FIG. 32 shows estimated traffic and SEO elements within a user interfacewindow that are anticipated to affect an online store's ability to reachits financial goals;

FIG. 33 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of keywordsubmission optimization operations;

FIG. 34 shows information that is proactively submitted to a commercialsearch engine and its associated SEO effect within a user interfacewindow;

FIGS. 35 a-b are a generalized flow chart of the performance of productand store performance optimization operations; and

FIG. 36 is a generalized flowchart of the performance of social commercestorefront valuation operations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A method and system are disclosed for managing catalog resources withina social commerce environment. For purposes of this disclosure, aninformation handling system may include any instrumentality or aggregateof instrumentalities operable to compute, classify, process, transmit,receive, retrieve, originate, switch, store, display, manifest, detect,record, reproduce, handle, or utilize any form of information,intelligence, or data for business, scientific, control, or otherpurposes. For example, an information handling system may be a personalcomputer, a network storage device, or any other suitable device and mayvary in size, shape, performance, functionality, and price. Theinformation handling system may include random access memory (RAM), oneor more processing resources such as a central processing unit (CPU) orhardware or software control logic, ROM, and/or other types ofnonvolatile memory. Additional components of the information handlingsystem may include one or more disk drives, one or more network portsfor communicating with external devices as well as various input andoutput (I/O) devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, and a video display.The information handling system may also include one or more busesoperable to transmit communications between the various hardwarecomponents.

FIG. 1 is a generalized illustration of an information handling system100 that can be used to implement the system and method of the presentinvention. The information handling system 100 includes a processor(e.g., central processor unit or “CPU”) 102, input/output (I/O) devices104, such as a display, a keyboard, a mouse, and associated controllers,a hard drive or disk storage 106, and various other subsystems 108. Invarious embodiments, the information handling system 100 also includesnetwork port 110 operable to connect to a network 140, which is likewiseaccessible by a service provider server 142. The information handlingsystem 100 likewise includes system memory 112, which is interconnectedto the foregoing via one or more buses 114. System memory 112 furthercomprises operating system (OS) 116 and in various embodiments may alsocomprise a social commerce marketplace system 118, a plurality of socialcommerce affiliate management modules 120, a plurality ofmerchant/network management modules 122, and a merchant onlinecart/checkout system 124. In one embodiment, the information handlingsystem 100 is able to download the social commerce marketplace system118, the plurality of social commerce affiliate management modules 120,the plurality of merchant/network management modules 122, and themerchant online cart/checkout system 124 from the service providerserver 142. In another embodiment, the social commerce marketplacesystem 118, the plurality of social commerce affiliate managementmodules 120, the plurality of merchant/network management modules 122,and the merchant online cart/checkout system 124 is provided as aservice from the service provider server 142.

FIG. 2 is a simplified block diagram showing the implementation of asocial commerce marketing system in accordance with an embodiment of theinvention. In this embodiment, a social commerce marketplace system 118is implemented with a plurality of social commerce affiliate managementmodules 120, a plurality of merchant/network management modules 122, amerchant online cart/checkout system 124. In these and otherembodiments, the plurality of social commerce affiliate managementmodules 120 are accessed and used by a plurality of affiliates 214.Likewise, the plurality of social commerce affiliate management modules120 comprises a blog/site management module 218, a social networkmanagement module 222, and a mobile delivery management module 222. Theplurality of social commerce affiliate management modules 120 likewisecomprises a hosting management module 224, a social commerce managementmodule 226, and a marketing management module 228.

In one embodiment, the blog/site management module 214 is used by theplurality of affiliates 214 to manage the posting and linking of socialcommerce content from the affiliate's online blog or website to thesocial commerce marketplace system 118. In another embodiment, thesocial network management module 220 is used by the plurality ofaffiliates 214 to manage the linkages between one or more social mediaenvironments and the social commerce marketplace system 118. In yetanother embodiment, the mobile delivery management module 222 is used bythe plurality of affiliates 214 to manage the delivery of socialcommerce content to a mobile device. In still another embodiment, thehosting management module 224 is used by the plurality of affiliates 214to manage the hosting environment(s) of a customized social commercestorefront associated with the affiliate and the merchant. In oneembodiment, the social commerce management module 226 is used by theplurality of affiliates 214 to perform social commerce managementoperations as described in greater detail herein. In yet anotherembodiment, the marketing management module 228 is used by the pluralityof affiliates 214 to perform social commerce marketing operations, aslikewise described in greater detail herein.

In various embodiments, the plurality of merchant/network managementmodules 122 are accessed and used by a plurality of merchantadministrators 230. In these and other embodiments, the plurality ofmerchant/network management modules 122 comprises a merchant/networkmanagement module 234, and a social commerce moderation module 236.Likewise, the plurality of merchant/network management modules 122comprises a social commerce reporting module 238, a targeting module240, and an incentives module 242.

In one embodiment, the merchant/network management module is used by isused by the plurality of merchant administrators 230 to manage aplurality of affiliate social commerce storefronts and a plurality ofaffiliate networks 204. In another embodiment, the moderation managementmodule 236 is used by the plurality of merchant administrators 230 tomonitor and moderate social commerce content and associated social mediacontent related to the plurality of affiliates 214. In yet anotherembodiment, the social commerce reporting module 238 is used by theplurality of merchant administrators 230 to administer and deliver aplurality of social commerce reports as described in greater detailherein. In one embodiment, the targeting module 240 is used by theplurality of merchant administrators 230 to perform targeted advertisingand promotion operations familiar to those of skill in the art anddescribed in greater detail herein. In another embodiment, theincentives module 242 is used by the plurality of merchantadministrators 230 to manage the accounting and payment of incentives tothe plurality of affiliates 214 as compensation for referring customersto the merchant. As described in greater detail herein, the plurality ofsocial commerce affiliate management modules 120 and the plurality ofmerchant/network management modules 122 may include additional modulesand the foregoing is not intended to limit the spirit, scope or intentof the invention.

Referring now to FIG. 2, a plurality of users, such as customers 202,are referred by a plurality of affiliate networks 204 to the socialcommerce marketplace system 118 as described in greater detail. Oncereferred, the customers 202 are presented with a customized socialcommerce storefront that is associated with an individual affiliate ofthe plurality of affiliates 214 and the merchant. In variousembodiments, each of the customized social commerce storefrontscomprises a micro catalog 208 of purchasable products, which is a subsetof a master catalog 210 comprising a set of available products. In theseand other embodiments, and as likewise described in greater detailherein, the customized social commerce storefronts comprise socialcommerce content related to the purchasable products. In these variousembodiments, the customers 202 review the social commerce content andselect individual purchasable products for purchase. Once selected, anonline purchase transaction familiar to skilled practitioners of the artis completed with the merchant online cart/checkout system 124.

FIG. 3 is a simplified block diagram showing a high-level architectureof a social commerce marketplace system as implemented in accordancewith an embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, thearchitecture a social commerce marketplace system 118 comprisesinfrastructure 302, data 304, application 306 and presentation 308layers. As shown in FIG. 3, the infrastructure 302 layer comprises feedsfrom affiliate networks 316, as described in greater detail herein, andother networks 318, such as advertising networks known to those of skillin the art. The infrastructure 302 layer likewise comprises a localapplication fabric 314, as likewise known to those of skill in the art,a plurality of application programming interfaces (APIs) 312, and aplurality of databases 310, as described in greater detail herein. Thedata 304 layer likewise comprises repository classes 320, which are usedfor the exchange of data between the data 304 and infrastructure 302layers.

Likewise, the application 306 layer comprises host environments 322,which in turn comprise a tenancy management module 324, a productcatalog management module 326, and a product search module 328. The hostenvironments 322 likewise comprise a stores management module 330, acommission management module 332, and a caching module 334. Likewise,the host environments 322 comprise an auditing module 336, anotifications module 338, a search engine optimization (SEO) module 340,a security management module 342, a moderation management module 344,and other modules 346 as described in greater detail herein.

In one embodiment, the tenancy management module 324 is used by merchantadministrators to manage a plurality of affiliate tenancies in a virtualenvironment. In another embodiment, the product catalog managementmodule 326 is used to manage available products in a master catalog andpurchasable products, which are subsets of the available products, inmicro catalogs as described in greater detail herein. In yet anotherembodiment, the product search module 328 is used with various othermodules in the initiation, provisioning, and management of affiliatestorefronts. In still another embodiment, the commission managementmodule 332 is used to track, account, and pay commissions to affiliatesas compensation for referring customers to the merchant. In oneembodiment, the caching module 334 is used to cache social commercecontent and other data related to conducting social commerce operations.

In another embodiment, the auditing module 336 is used to audit socialcommerce transactions that are performed within the social commercemarketplace system. In yet another embodiment, the notifications module338 is use to manage notifications to affiliates as well as usersreferred by the affiliates to the social commerce marketplace system. Instill another embodiment, the SEO module 340 is used to perform SEOoperations known to skilled practitioners of the art. In thisembodiment, the SEO operations, as described in greater detail herein,are performed to optimize the identification of a purchasable productaccording to the search terms used by either an affiliate or a user of asocial media environment. In one embodiment, the security module is usedto maintain the security of the social commerce marketplace system. Inanother embodiment, the moderation module 344 is used to monitor andmoderate social commerce content and associated social media contentrelated to a plurality of affiliates. In yet another embodiment, theother modules 346 comprise additional modules, as described in greaterdetail herein, that operate within the host environments 322.

In various embodiments, the presentation 308 layer comprises aRepresentational State Transfer (REST) application program interface(API) 348 known to skilled practitioners of the art. In these and otherembodiments, the presentation 308 layer likewise comprises a controllermodule 350 a presentation model 352, a presentation view 354, and aplurality of administration 356 and affiliate storefront 358 sites. Inthese various embodiments, the controller module 350 interacts with thepresentation model 354 and presentation view 354, which likewiseinteract with each other, to present different aspects of the pluralityof administration 356 and affiliate storefront 358 sites. Likewise, thepresentation view 354 module provides feedback to the controller module350.

Referring now to FIG. 3, the presentation 308 layer comprises managerclasses 350 and the application 306 layer comprises domain services. Themanager classes 360 provide presentation layer data to the servicecontracts module 362, which is then used for the management of thedomain service 364. In turn, the domain services 364 provide applicationlayer data to the repository contracts module 366, where it is used forthe management of the repository classes 320. Likewise, the servicecontracts module 362 and the repository contracts module 366 are managedand bounded by a dependencies module 368. In turn, the dependenciesmodule 368 is managed with the logging 370, caching 372, and auditing374 management modules.

FIGS. 4 a-c show a simplified block diagram of a plurality of socialcommerce modules implemented within a plurality of host environments inaccordance with an embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, thehost environments 322 comprise social media store 4001, affiliatestorefront 4002, blog 4003, templates 4004, content 4006, notifications4010, uniform resource locator (URL) 4011, reputation 4012, and searchengine optimization (SEO) 4017 management modules. Likewise, the hostenvironments 322 comprise catalog 4026, links 4035, web analytics 4038,fraud 4042, payment 4048, administration 4054, reports 4063, widget4070, campaign management 4087, web optimization 4101, and storefrontvaluation 4118 management modules.

In one embodiment, the social media store 4001 management module is usedto manage a social commerce storefront that is associated with anaffiliate's presence and activities within a social media environment.In another embodiment, the affiliate storefront 4002 management moduleis used to manage a social commerce storefront that is associated withan affiliate's web site or online blog. In yet another embodiment, theblog 4003 management module is used to manage an affiliate's blogactivities as it relates to social commerce activities, processes andoperations as described in greater detail herein. In still anotherembodiment, as likewise described in greater detail herein, thetemplates 4004 management module is used for the automated configurationof social commerce storefront pages. In one embodiment, thenotifications 4010 management module is used for the management ofnotifications to affiliates and users associated with affiliates, suchas users of an affiliate's online social commerce presence. In variousembodiments, the affiliate's online presence may comprise a blog, awebsite, or a community of interest or conversation thread in a socialmedia environment. In another embodiment, the URL 4011 management moduleis used to manage URL links between the host environments 322 and theaffiliate's various online social commerce presences.

In yet another embodiment, the content 4005 management module furthercomprises articles 4006, podcast 4007, pictures 4008, and video 4009management sub-modules. In this and other embodiments, the articles4006, podcast 4007, pictures 4008, and video 4009 management sub-modulesare used by affiliates to manage their respective, associated content asit relates to social commerce operations. In still another embodiment,the reputation 4012 management module comprises points 4013, badges4014, activity 4015, and score 4016 management sub-modules. In this andother embodiments, the reputation 4012 management module comprisespoints 4013, badges 4014, activity 4015, and score 4016 managementsub-modules are used by the merchant to manage reputation dataassociated with affiliates. As used herein, reputation data refers todata associated with social commerce activities performed by anaffiliate. As an example, an affiliate may receive points from amerchant for each item of social commerce content they product.Likewise, badges may be awarded upon achievement of various point tiersor frequency of activity. Likewise, each social commerce content itemmay receive a score that is associated with the achievement of thepoints and badges. It will be appreciated that many such examples arepossible and the foregoing is not intended to limit the spirit, scope,or intent of the invention.

In one embodiment, the SEO management 4017 module comprises backlinks4018, rank 4019, competition 4020, search application program interface(API) 4021, keyword density 4022, keyword placement 4023, keywordinsertion 4024, and content comparison 4025 management sub-modules. Inthis and other embodiments the various sub-modules of the SEO management4017 module are used by affiliates and the merchants to perform SEOoperations familiar to those of skill in the art. As an example, thebacklinks 4018 management sub-module may be used to determine prior website locations that a user has visited prior to being referred to anaffiliate's social commerce storefront. Likewise, the rank 4019management sub-module may be used to determine the search engine rankassigned to the affiliate's social commerce storefront as well as theindividual search engine ranking of the search terms that resulted inthe referral. As another example, the competition 4020 managementsub-module may be used by the merchant to rank the search enginepopularity of their competitors, or alternatively, the frequency that acompetitor's web site is returned as a result of a search by a user of asocial media environment. Likewise, the search API 4021 managementsub-module may be used by the merchant and affiliates alike to gainaccess to various search engines in order to receive search metadata. Asyet another example, the keyword density 4022, placement 4023, andinsertion 4024 management sub-modules may likewise be used by themerchant and the affiliates to optimize searches through the use ofpredetermined keywords within related social commerce content. As stillanother example, the content comparison 4025 sub-module may be used tocompare various items of social commerce content to determine whichitems perform better than others during SEO operations.

In another embodiment, the catalog 4026 management module comprisesfilter 4027, search 4028, price 4029, taxonomy 4030, import 4031,differential 4032, categories 4033, and deals 4034 managementsub-modules. In this and other embodiments, the filter 4027, search4028, price 4029, taxonomy 4030, import 4031, differential 4032,categories 4033, and deals 4034 management sub-modules are used by theaffiliate for managing their social commerce storefronts. For example,the filter 4027, search 4028, price 4029, differential 4032, deals 4034,and import 4031 management sub-modules may be used individually, or incombination, to identify and populate a set of purchasable productswithin a micro catalog from a set of available products contained in amaster catalog. Likewise, the taxonomy 4030 and categories 4033management sub-modules may be used to understand the interrelationshipof various purchasable products and how they are categorized within theaffiliate's social commerce storefront. It will be appreciated that manysuch examples are possible and the foregoing is not intended to limitthe spirit, scope, or intent of the invention.

In yet another embodiment, the links 4035 management module comprisesnetwork 4036 and system 4037 management sub-modules, which are used tomanage the linkages between the various systems, modules, andsub-modules of the social commerce marketplace system and variousaffiliate and advertising networks. In still another embodiment, the webanalytics 4038 module comprises web crawling 4039, listening 4040, andanalytics 4041 management sub-modules. In this and other embodiments theweb crawling 4039, listening 4040, and analytics 4041 managementsub-modules are used by the merchant to perform web analytics operationsfamiliar to skilled practitioners of the art. As an example, themerchant may use the web crawling 4039 management sub-module to performweb crawling operations to discover conversation threads associated withits products. Once discovered, the listening 4040 management sub-modulemay be used to monitor the conversations threads, which are thenanalyzed with the analytics 4041 management sub-module to determinetheir relevance and possible effect on social commerce operations. Thoseof skill in the art will be knowledgeable of many such examples.Accordingly, the foregoing is not intended to limit the spirit, scope,or intent of the invention.

In one embodiment, the fraud 4042 management module comprises an abusereporting 4043, traffic 4044, links 4045, Internet Protocol (IP) 4046,and dashboard 4047 management sub-modules. In this and otherembodiments, the abuse reporting 4043, traffic 4044, links 4045,Internet Protocol (IP) 4046, and dashboard 4047 management sub-modulesare used by the merchant to identify, mitigate, and prevent fraudulentbehavior within the social commerce market place system. As an example,the traffic 4044, links 4045, and IP 4046 management sub-modules may beused to identify the source of fraudulent behavior. Once identified, itmay be reported by the abuse reporting 4043 management sub-module andthen displayed for review within a user interface by the dashboard 4047sub-module.

In another embodiment, the payment 4048 module comprises a traffic 4049,payment 4050, 1099 Form 4051, buyers 4052, and payment processor 4053management sub-modules. In this and other embodiments, the traffic 4149,payment 4150, 1099 4151, buyers 4152, and payment processor 4153,management sub-modules are used by the merchant for the management ofpayment to affiliates. As an example, the buyers 4052 and traffic 4049management sub-modules may be used to identify individual buyers and thetraffic they generate at an affiliate's social commerce storefront. Inturn, the payment 4050 and payment processor 4053 sub-modules may beused to track the payments made by the buyers, which are then processedby various payment processors. Likewise, the same sub-modules may beused to track commission payments made by the merchant to individualaffiliates. The output of those sub-modules may then be processed by the1099 Form 4051 sub-module for managing reporting of the commissionpayments to the affiliate to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

In yet another embodiment, the administration 4054 module comprisescompanies 4055, target 4056, users 4057, roles 4058, deals 4059,moderation 4060, profile 4061, and email 4062 management sub-modules. Inthis embodiment, the companies 4055, target 4056, users 4057, roles4058, deals 4059, moderation 4060, profile 4061, and email 4062management sub-modules are used by the merchant to administer thevarious users of the social commerce marketplace system. As an example,the target 4056 management sub-module may be used, individually or inconjunction with, the target 4056, users 4057, profile 4061, and roles4058 management sub-modules to identify specific users of a social mediaenvironment. Once identified, their social media interactions may bemonitored by the moderation 4060 management sub-module, and in turn theemail 4062 and deals 4059 management sub-modules may be usedindividually, or in combination, to target predetermined users.

In still another embodiment, the reports module 4063 comprises trafficabuse 4064, traffic 4065, search engines 4066, users 4067, contentstatus 4068, and competitors 4069 reporting sub-modules. In thisembodiment, the traffic abuse 4064, traffic 4065, search engines 4066,users 4067, content status 4068, and competitors 4069 reportingsub-modules are used by the merchant to generate various reports relatedto social commerce operations, which in turn may be provided to anaffiliate. As an example, the content status 4068 reporting sub-modulemay report on the status of various items of social commerce content andthe search engines 4066 reporting sub-module may report on the searchresults it generates. In turn, the traffic reporting 4065 sub-module maybe used to report on the social commerce traffic resulting from thesearch results and the users 4067 reporting sub-module may providereports related to the various users referred to the social commercesite. Likewise, the traffic abuse reporting sub-module 4064 may be usedto report on various traffic abuses related to the social commercemarketplace system, while the competitors 4069 reporting sub-module mayprovide reports related to competitive activity from competitors.

In various embodiments, the widgets module 4070 may comprise webcrawling 4071, keyword analysis 4072, analytics 4073, widget manager4074, data 4075, semantic analysis 4076, catalog management 4077,scoring 4078, hot spots manager 4079, sentiment analysis 4080, keywordwidget 4081, social keyword widget 4082, API 4083, recommendationsengine 4084, social score widget 4085 and in-line links widget 4086sub-modules. In one embodiment, the web-crawling 4071 sub-module isimplemented to perform web crawling operations to discover keywordswithin webpages. In another embodiment, the keyword analysis 4072sub-module is implemented to determine related keywords, competition ofkeywords, search frequency of keywords, and locality of keywords. In yetanother embodiment, the analytics 4073 sub-module is implemented toprovide the utilization of widgets by visitors. In still anotherembodiment, the widget manager 4074 sub-module is implemented to providea set of user interfaces to configure and publish a widget. In variousembodiments, the widget manager 4074 sub-module is implemented toprovide templates that comprise user interface (UI) themes andinteractions that determine the end-user experience. In these and otherembodiments, the widget manager 4074 sub-module comprises a wizard thatprovides a multi-step process to configure the widget. In oneembodiment, the widget manager 4074 sub-module comprises a dashboardproviding a UI to access the wizard, embed associated programming code,and generate related reports.

In one embodiment, the data 4075 sub-module is implemented to processsocial graph, user, and catalog data. In another embodiment, thesemantic analysis 4076 sub-module is implemented to semantically extractkeywords, topics, people and places from strings of text. In anotherembodiment, the catalog 4076 sub-module is implemented with a widget toprocess catalog data. In yet another embodiment, the hot spots manager4077 sub-module comprises a set of user interfaces to configure andpublish images and videos that contain hot spots. In still anotherembodiment, the sentiment analysis 4078 sub-module is implemented toextract positive, neutral and negative tone from strings of text. In oneembodiment, the page keyword widget 4079 sub-module is implemented toprovide a widget that automatically matches catalog products to thecontext of keywords extracted from a webpage. In another embodiment, thesocial keyword widget 4080 sub-module is implemented to provide a widgetthat automatically matches catalog products to a user's context bymatching keywords and themes from their social graph. In yet anotherembodiment, the API 4081 sub-module is implemented to provide an APIbetween a widget and various operating environments. In still anotherembodiment, the recommendation engine 4082 sub-module is implemented toautomatically select or recommend objects that best match the user'scontext based on a set of algorithms. In one embodiment, the socialscore widget 4083 sub-module is implemented to provide a widget thatdynamically presents catalog products and discounts according to auser's social score. In yet another embodiment, the in-line links widget4084 sub-module is implemented to provide a widget that automaticallycreates in-line hyperlinks within text strings based on keywords thatmatch objects from a catalog. It will be appreciated that many suchembodiments are possible and the foregoing is not intended to limit thespirit, scope or intent of the invention.

In various embodiments, the campaign management module 4087 comprisescampaigns 4088, offers 4089, data 4090, catalog 4091, scoring 4092,goals 4093, social graph 4094, recommendations engine 4095, publisher4096, testing 4097, traffic 4098, scheduler 4099, and interactionsmanagement sub-modules.

In one embodiment, the campaigns 4088 management sub-module is used tocreate, schedule and manage on-line marketing campaigns that drivetraffic to an affiliate's websites, blogs and social media networks. Inanother embodiment, the campaigns 4088 management sub-module is used tocreate an email marketing campaign. In yet another embodiment, thecampaigns 4088 management sub-module is used to create dynamic landingweb pages using behavioral targeting approaches to determine whichcontent, layout and calls-to-action to present to each visitor. In stillanother embodiment, the campaigns 4088 management sub-module is used topost offers to users accounts (e.g., “walls”) within social networkingsites such as Facebook®. In another embodiment, the campaigns 4088management sub-module is used to post content and offers via socialsites like Twitter®. In yet another embodiment, the campaigns 4088management sub-module is used to select the landing page that campaignrecipients will visit when they click-through an offer (e.g., by anemail, tweet, Facebook® post, etc.).

In another embodiment, the offers 4089 management sub-module is used toselect predetermined products and services from one or more catalogs4091. The selected products are then presented to a campaign recipient.In yet another embodiment, the data 4090 management sub-module is usedto select the delivery medium of a campaign, such as email, searchmarketing, display ad, or social media. In yet another embodiment, thedata 4090 management sub-module is used to select the content andcreative assets that are displayed to users that view or otherwiserespond to the campaign. In yet another embodiment, the offers 4089management sub-module is used to select the delivery end-points (e.g.,Facebook®, Twitter®, etc.) that the campaign will be transported throughto reach the intended user(s).

In yet another embodiment, the data 4090 management sub-module is usedto select the list of users that are targeted to receive a predeterminedcampaign. In still another embodiment, the data 4090 managementsub-module is used to select the segment of users that are targeted toreceive a targeted campaign. In yet another embodiment, the data 4090management sub-module is used to store and manage the data collectedfrom the recipients of the campaign via the interactions 4100 managementsub-module. In yet another embodiment, the data 4090 managementsub-module is used to store and manage the versions of landing pages(e.g., their respective content, layout, style, etc.) that are usedpresented to users. In yet another embodiment, the data 4090 managementsub-module is used to store and manage user's social graph information.

In still another embodiment, the catalog 4091 management sub-module isused to select which products to include in the campaign's offers. Inyet another embodiment, the catalog 4091 management sub-module is usedto select which merchants to include in the campaign's offers.

In one embodiment, the scoring 4092 management sub-module is used toselect a list of targeted campaign recipients by using variousalgorithms to calculate the economic value of each recipient, which isthen ranked. In yet another embodiment the scoring 4092 managementsub-module is used to select a list of targeted recipients by usingvarious algorithms to calculate the social influence of each recipient,which is then ranked to determine the prioritized order of whichrecipients receive the campaign. In still another embodiment, thescoring 4092 management sub-module is used to select a list of targetedrecipients by using various algorithms to calculate the conversionuplift of similar segments and similar campaigns within a predeterminedgroup of accounts, which are then rank ordered.

In another embodiment, the goals 4093 management sub-module is used tocreate the success criteria that campaigns will be measured against. Inyet another embodiment, the goals 4093 management sub-module is used tomeasure the response to the campaign against predefined business goals(e.g., success criteria) to determine the success of the campaign. Instill another embodiment, the goals 4093 management sub-module is usedto measure the interactions rates and success criteria for a specificchannel (e.g., a delivery medium such as Facebook®, email, etc.). In yetanother embodiment, the goals 4093 management sub-module is used comparea campaign's success rate(s) against averages across a predeterminedgroup of accounts. In yet another embodiment, the goals 4093 managementsub-module is used to suggest combinations of campaigns and offers thatare likely to meet the success criteria based upon a predetermined groupof accounts. In various embodiments, the business goals and successcriteria may include email click through rates, landing page conversionrates, traffic volume to a predetermined landing page, mentions andre-tweets, purchases, average order value, revenue, leads, and so forth.It will be appreciated that many such business goals and successcriteria are possible and the foregoing is not intended to limit thespirit or scope of the invention.

In yet another embodiment, the social graph 4094 management sub-moduleis used to pull a campaign recipient's data from one or more socialnetworks (e.g., Facebook®, Twitter®, Google+®) via APIs such that it canbe used by the scoring 4092 management sub-module to determine whichusers should receive the campaign.

In still another embodiment, the recommendation engine 4095 sub-moduleutilizes algorithms to dynamically select which offers provided by theoffers 4089 management sub-module (e.g., products, etc.) each campaignrecipient should be presented within their respective landing pages toincrease the likelihood of uplift. In yet another embodiment, therecommendation engine 4095 sub-module utilizes algorithms to selectwhich data provided by the data 4090 management sub-module (e.g.,landing page layout, content, etc.) each campaign recipient should bepresented within their respective landing pages to increase thelikelihood of uplift. In still another embodiment, the recommendationengine 4095 sub-module is used to suggest what campaigns and offers anaccount should consider using to meet success criteria goals provided bythe goals 4093 management sub-module.

In one embodiment, the publisher 4096 management sub-module is used toselect when campaign interactions provided by the interactions 4100management sub-module are to be made available to campaign recipients.In yet another embodiment, the publisher 4096 management sub-module isused with the recommendation engine 4095 management sub-module to selecta publishing schedule of interactions provided by the interactions 4100management sub-module that would result in a higher likelihood ofmeeting or exceeding goals success criteria goals provided by the goals4093 management sub-module. In yet another embodiment, the publisher4096 management sub-module is used to select which landing pages will bepublished to the Internet and made available to campaign recipientsaccording to a schedule provided by the scheduler 4099 managementsub-module.

In another embodiment, the testing 4097 management sub-module is used torandomly present different combinations of interactions, offers and datato campaign recipients in order to determine which combination resultsin the highest attainment of predetermined goals. In yet anotherembodiment, the testing 4097 management sub-module is used to presentdifferent combinations of interactions, offers and data to predeterminedsegments of campaign recipients to determine which combination resultsin the highest attainment of predetermined goals. In another embodiment,the testing 4097 management sub-module provides users the ability tochange or select predetermined versions of content elements withinregions of published webpage to test from within the context of thewebpage using standard web browsers. In yet another embodiment, thetesting 4097 management sub-module is used to select a statisticalconfidence interval used by the social commerce marketplace system todetermine a winning combination of interactions, offers and data.

In yet another embodiment, the traffic 4098 management sub-module isused in conjunction with the testing 4097 management sub-module toselect the amount and frequency of traffic to direct to a predeterminedcombination of interactions, offers and data to control the presentationof campaigns to visitors.

In still another embodiment, the scheduler 4099 management sub-module isused to determine when recipients will be exposed to a campaign and thefrequency of follow up interactions. In another embodiment, thescheduler 4099 management sub-module is used to determine when landingpages will be published and unpublished for a predetermined campaign. Inyet another embodiment, the scheduler 4099 management sub-module is usedto determine when offers will be published and unpublished for apredetermined campaign.

In one embodiment, the interactions 4100 management sub-module isimplemented as an instance of the user interface (UI) within apredetermined channel for a predetermined campaign recipient (e.g., anoffer in combination with an end point). In one embodiment, theinteractions 4100 management sub-module is used to record individualrecipient engagements with a campaign to capture data (e.g., when, whichend-point, did the user click through an offer, did the user convert,etc.) that the goals 4093 management sub-module uses to determinewhether the business goals have been met or exceeded.

In various embodiments, the web optimization module 4101 comprises webcrawling 4102, analytics 4103, data 4104, catalog 4105, scoring 4106,sentiment analysis 4107, social graph 4108, recommendations engine 4109,offers 4110, publisher 4111, testing 4112, ratings 4113, reviews 4114,social shopping 4115, listening 4116, and traffic managementsub-modules.

In one embodiment, the web crawling 4102 management sub-module is usedto capture a website's page content, layouts, creative assets andcalls-to-action. In another embodiment, the web crawling 4102 managementsub-module is used with the recommendation engine 4109 and testing 4112management sub-modules to recommend content to use within webpages thathave been statistically proven to increase uplift for the source site.In yet another embodiment, the web crawling 4102 management sub-moduleis used to crawl the Internet and social network sites for productratings and reviews.

In another embodiment, the analytics 4103 management sub-module is usedto capture the visitor click-stream data that is used by therecommendations engine 4109 management sub-module to determine whichcontent, layout, and calls-to-action are most likely to result inincreased visitor engagement (e.g., amount of time on-site, page views,etc.) and conversions.

In yet another embodiment, the data 4101 management sub-module is usedto retrieve prior purchase history information for a visitor, which inturn is used by the recommendation engine 4109 management sub-module todetermine which content, layout, and calls-to-action are most likely toresult in increased visitor engagement (e.g., time on-site, page views,etc.) and a conversion event for the current site visitor or othervisitors with similar characteristics. In yet another embodiment, thedata 4101 management sub-module is used to retrieve current temporalinformation and end user device information for a visitor, which in turnis used by the recommendation engine 4109 management sub-module todetermine which content, layout, and calls-to-action are most likely toresult in increased visitor engagement (e.g., time on-site, page views,etc.) and a conversion event for the current site visitor or othervisitors with similar characteristics.

In still another embodiment, the catalog 4105 management sub-module isused to select which products and offers to present to a visitor asdetermined by the recommendation engine 4109 management sub-module thatare most likely to result in increased visitor engagement (e.g., timeon-site, page views, etc.) or a conversion event.

In one embodiment, the scoring 4106 management sub-module is used todetermine the social influence of a visitor such that therecommendations engine 4109 management sub-module is able to determinewhich content (e.g., products and offers), layouts, and calls-to-actionto present to the user that is most likely to result in increasedvisitor engagement (time on site, page views), or a conversion event fora calculated social influence score. In yet another embodiment, thescoring 4106 management sub-module is used with the sentiment analysis4107 management sub-module to calculate trends of topics and productsthat are then provided as recommendations to users to include withintheir websites to capitalize upon the trend.

In another embodiment, the sentiment analysis 4107 management sub-moduleis used to analyze the tone of a website, page, blog, content or socialpost to determine the positive, neutral or negative tonality about thetopics within the content. The sentiment analysis 4107 managementsub-module then aggregates tonality analysis across multiple sites,social posts, social networks, etc. to identify market trends forproducts and services. In turn, the recommendation engine 4109management sub-module recommends products to merchandize in order tocapitalize upon the market trends. In another embodiment, the sentimentanalysis 4107 management sub-module is used to identify customersupport, product and service satisfaction issues for the website ownerto remedy. In another embodiment, the sentiment analysis 4107 managementsub-module is used with the social graph 4108 management sub-module todetermine positive topics of interest for a user and their network ofusers, which are then used to target predetermined content and productsthat match the users' topics of interest.

In yet another embodiment, the social graph 4108 management sub-moduleis used to retrieve visitor social data and social relationship datasuch that the recommendation engine 4109 management sub-module candetermine which content (e.g., products and offers), layouts, andcalls-to-action to present to the user that are most likely to result inincreased visitor engagement (e.g., time on-site, page views, etc.) or aconversion event based upon the users social graph information. Itanother embodiment, the social graph 4108 management sub-moduleprocesses a user's social graph data to match it with other users thathave similar social graph characteristics.

In still another embodiment, the recommendation engine 4109 managementsub-module is used to determine which content (e.g., products andoffers), layouts, and calls-to-action to present to the user that aremost likely to result in increased visitor engagement (e.g., timeon-site, page views, etc.) or a conversion event. In this and otherembodiments, the recommendation engine 4109 management sub-module usesinputs from the analytics 4013, data 4104, catalog 4105, social graph4108, and scoring 4106 management sub-modules as inputs into analgorithm for the afore-mentioned operations.

In one embodiment, the offers 4110 management sub-module is used toselect which products and offers to present to a user that are mostlikely to result in increased engagement (e.g., time on-site andconversions). In another embodiment, the offers 4110 managementsub-module is used to match the highest rated products as found by theweb crawler 4102 management sub-module with products from the catalog4105 management sub-module to present to a user.

In another embodiment, the publisher 4111 management sub-module is usedto schedule the automatic publishing and un-publishing of web pages. Inyet another embodiment, the publisher 4111 management sub-module is usedto schedule the automatic publishing and un-publishing of productsprovided by the catalog 4105 management sub-module within predeterminedweb pages. In still another embodiment, the publisher 4111 managementsub-module is used to schedule the automatic publishing andun-publishing of content variations within predetermined webpages tokeep the website fresh.

In yet another embodiment, the testing 4112 management sub-module isused to randomly present different combinations of data, page layout,content and visual style within webpages to visitors to determine whichcombination results in the highest level of engagement (e.g., timeon-site or conversions). In another embodiment, the testing 4112management sub-module provides users the ability to change or selectpredetermined versions of content elements within regions of a publishedwebpage in order to use standard web browsers to directly test fromwithin the context of the webpage. In yet another embodiment, thetesting 4112 management sub-module is used to select the statisticalconfidence interval the social commerce marketplace system used todetermine a winning combination of data, page layout, content and visualstyle to automatically publish the winning version to the webpage.

In still another embodiment, the ratings 4113 management sub-module isused to dynamically select which product ratings format to display tothe user that is most likely to result in higher engagement for thevisitor. In another embodiment, the ratings 4113 management sub-moduleis used to select which products to display within a web page based uponthe correlation between the products ratings and user click-throughrates. In yet another embodiment, the ratings 4113 management sub-moduleis used to identify trends in product ratings to recommend when to addor remove a predetermined product or class of products from a website tooptimize engagement.

In one embodiment, the reviews 4114 management sub-module is used todynamically select which product reviews format to display to the userthat is most likely to result in higher engagement for the visitor. Inanother embodiment, the reviews 4114 management sub-module is used toselect which products to display within a web page based upon thecorrelation between the products reviews and user click-through rates.In yet another embodiment, the reviews 4114 management sub-module isused to identify trends in product reviews to recommend when to add orremove a predetermined product or class of products from a website tooptimize engagement. The reviews 4114 management sub-module uses thesentiment analysis 4107 management sub-module to determine positive,neutral or negative sentiment towards a specific product. In stillanother embodiment, the reviews 4114 management sub-module uses thepredictive scoring 4106 management sub-module to determine the directionand magnitude of market trends for each product managed by the catalog4105 management sub-module.

In another embodiment, the social shopping 4115 management sub-moduleimplements JavaScript® into third party website pages to display userinterface (UI) controls next to products that list users in their socialnetwork that have indicated in their social network (e.g., Facebook®)that they own the product. In another embodiment, the social shopping4115 management sub-module shows which users within their social networkhave visited the webpage and when. In another embodiment, the socialshopping 4115 management sub-module displays a list of individualswithin their social network that have used the same referring searchkeyword term that the user used to reach the webpage. In yet anotherembodiment, the social shopping 4115 management sub-module listsindividuals, and their associated content, that have expressed anopinion about the product within their social networks (e.g., ratings,reviews, mentions, etc.).

In yet another embodiment, the listening 4116 management sub-module isused with the crawling 4102 management sub-module to find specificinformation on websites and within social network sites matchingproducts with a catalog managed by the catalog 4105 managementsub-module. In another embodiment, the listening 4116 managementsub-module provides users with content ideas, content fragments, anduser interface designs to consider using within their websites, basedupon content collected by the web crawler 4102 management sub-module. Inyet another embodiment, the listening 4116 management sub-modulesearches for social network mentions (e.g., Twitter® tweets or Facebook®wall posts) and provides them to the sentiment analysis 4107 managementsub-module to identify positive content that the recommendations engine4109 management sub-module uses to recommend which products tomerchandize.

In still another embodiment, the traffic 4098 management sub-module isused in conjunction with testing 4112 management sub-module to selectthe amount and frequency of traffic to direct to a specific combinationof data, layout, content and calls-to-action to control the presentationof webpage user interfaces to visitors.

In one embodiment, the storefront valuation 4118 management module isused to assess the monetary value of a social commerce storefrontdescribed in greater detail herein. In this and other embodiments, thestorefront valuation 4118 management module comprises a digital worthscoring 4119 sub-module, a social commerce valuation 4120 sub-module, asocial commerce comparison 4121 sub-module, and a storefront valuation4122 sub-module. In one embodiment, the digital worth scoring 4119sub-module is used to generate an aggregate digital worth score for theowner of the storefront and the individual social media relationshipswithin the owner's social graph. As used herein, a digital worth scorerefers to a numeric value, or set of values, derived from the level ofsocial influence a social media user is capable of exerting upon apredetermined market segment.

In another embodiment, the social commerce valuation module processesthe aggregate digital worth score generated by the digital worth scoring4119 sub-module, social site history associated with user's within theowner's social network, forecasted traffic rates associated with thevalue of the target social commerce storefront's key words, the value ofits merchandize and services, and corresponding advertising to generatea social commerce valuation value. In yet another embodiment, thedigital worth comparison 4120 sub-module is used to identify socialcommerce storefronts, each of which has a respective social commercevaluation value, that are comparable to the target social commercestorefront. In still another embodiment, the storefront valuation 4122sub-module processes the respective social commerce valuation values ofthe target and comparable social commerce storefronts to generate apotential monetary value of the target social commerce storefront.

FIG. 5 is a generalized flow chart of social commerce initiationoperations performed on behalf of an affiliate in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, affiliate socialcommerce operations are begun in step 502, followed by a candidateaffiliate providing information to a merchant in step 504 to register asan affiliate. The merchant then uses the provided information to createa social commerce storefront for the affiliate in step 506. Theaffiliate then proceeds to select a product to add to their socialcommerce storefront in step 508. In various embodiments, the product isselected from a plurality of available products contained in a mastercatalog. The selected product is then added to the affiliate's socialcommerce storefront in step 510. In various embodiments, a selectedproduct becomes a purchasable product once it is added to theaffiliate's social commerce storefront.

The affiliate then views their social commerce storefront in step 512,followed by a determination being made in step 514 whether to add anadditional product. If so, then the process is continued, proceedingwith step 508. Otherwise, an article related to one or more of thepurchasable products is written in step 516 and then posted to theaffiliate's social commerce storefront. The ongoing sales results of theaffiliate's social commerce storefront is then tracked in step 518, aswell as the ongoing ranking of its performance relative to otheraffiliate social commerce storefronts in step 520. Ongoing conversion oforganic searches resulting in sale is likewise tracked in step 522,followed by affiliate social commerce initiation operations being endedin step 524.

FIGS. 6 a-d are generalized depictions of social commerce initiationoperations performed on behalf of an affiliate within a plurality ofuser interface windows in accordance with an embodiment of theinvention. In this embodiment, a social commerce storefront managementmodule, as described in greater detail herein, is implemented within awindow 604 of a user interface (UI) 602. As shown in FIG. 6 a, the UIwindow 604 comprises data entry fields 606 for a candidate affiliate toprovide information to initiate the creation of a social commercestorefront. Referring now to FIG. 6 b, the affiliate then providesadditional information 610 associated with their social commercestorefront. As shown in FIG. 6 c, the affiliate selects the category 614of their social commerce storefront, and as likewise shown in FIG. 6 d,selects products 614 to be displayed for purchase within their socialcommerce storefront.

FIG. 7 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of social commerceoperations as implemented in accordance with an embodiment of theinvention. In this embodiment, social commerce operations are begun instep 702, followed by the affiliate managing the integration of thesocial commerce storefront in step 704 with a social media environment,such as a social network. In various embodiments, the integration may bewith an affiliate web site or blog. The affiliate then launches thesocial commerce storefront in step 706, followed by the importation offriends, family, and associates from one or more social mediaenvironments (e.g., a social network) in step 708. The friends, familyand associates are then matched with products that are appropriate totheir interests in step 710, followed by a determination in step 712whether to create a promotional offer for them. If so, then apromotional offer is created in step 714 and the process is continued,proceeding with step 712. Otherwise, a determination is made in step 716whether the affiliate will offer to provide an offer to pay a commissionto the friends, family or associates in return for referrals. If so,then then a commission offer is prepared in step 718 and the process iscontinued, proceeding with step 716. Otherwise the promotion offers(s),the commission offer(s), or both, are displayed to the friends, familyand associates in-line within the social media environment in step 720.Ongoing activity at the affiliate's social commerce storefront, and thecorresponding success of the offer(s), is tracked in step 722 and socialcommerce operations are then ended in step 724.

FIG. 8 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of social commerceadvertising network management operations as implemented in accordancewith an embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, advertisingnetwork operations are begun in step 802, followed by ongoing operationsin step 804 for affiliate and enterprise channels to manage their onlineadvertisements. In step 806 the affiliate and enterprise channelsperform ongoing operations to select online advertisements for purchase,followed by corresponding ongoing operations in step 808 to place thepurchased online advertisements in predetermined online locations. Insteps 810, 812, 814, 816, and 818, the affiliate and enterprise channelsperform ongoing operations respectively display the onlineadvertisements in social commerce storefronts, online newsletters,social media channels, online billboards, and enterprise sites. Ongoingoperations are then performed in step 820 to correlate sales to theplacement of the online advertisements, followed by advertising networkoperations being ended in step 822.

FIGS. 9 a-b show the creation of an affiliate offer within a userinterface window in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Inthis embodiment, a social commerce storefront deals management module,as described in greater detail herein, is implemented within a window904 of a user interface (UI) 902. As shown in FIG. 9 a, the UI window904 comprises an ‘Offers’ tab 906, a data entry field 908 forinformation related to the merchant and the affiliate making the offer,and associated data entry fields 910 corresponding to details of thepurchasable product. Likewise, the UI window 904 comprises data entryfields 912 corresponding to details of the offer, as well as an offerdisplay window 914 that provides a preview of the offer as it willappear when presented within a social media environment. As likewiseshown in FIG. 9 a, data display field 916 displays summary informationcorresponding to a related offer, and as shown in FIG. 9 b, acorresponding offer display window 918 providing a preview of therelated offer, as well as data display fields 920 displaying summaryinformation corresponding to other offers.

FIG. 10 shows the display of affiliate offers within a user interfacewindow implemented in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Inthis embodiment, a social commerce storefront deals management module,as described in greater detail herein, is implemented within a window1004 of a user interface (UI) 1002. As shown in FIG. 10, the UI window1004 comprises an ‘Offers’ tab 1006, as well a listing 1008 of aplurality of offers and related information 1010.

FIG. 11 shows the display of affiliate network feeds and associatedoffers within a user interface window implemented in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, a social commercestorefront deals management module, as described in greater detailherein, is implemented within a window 1104 of a user interface (UI)1102. As shown in FIG. 11, the UI window 1104 comprises an ‘Offers’ tab906, as well a listing 1108 of a plurality of advertising network feedscorresponding to referrals resulting from associated offers, and relatedinformation 1110.

FIG. 12 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of contentsyndication operations as implemented in accordance with an embodimentof the invention. In this embodiment, content syndication operations arebegun in step 1202, followed by the ongoing generation of search engineoptimization (SEO) content by an affiliate, a professional author, orboth, in step 1204. Ongoing syndication operations are then performed instep 1206 to syndicate the SEO content other sites and establishcorresponding links Then, in step 1208, ongoing operations are performedto post the SEO content to other content marketplaces known to skilledpractitioners of the art. A determination is then made in step 1210whether enterprises (e.g., corporations) elect to accept the SEOcontent. If so, then ongoing operations are performed by the enterprisesin step 1212 to accept the SEO content for online publication. As anexample, a corporation may elect to post predetermined SEO content ontheir internal web site for review by employees.

However, if it is determined in step 1210 that enterprises do not electto accept the SEO content, or if they do so in step 1212, then adetermination is made in step 1214 whether other affiliates elect toaccept the SEO content for online publication. If so, then ongoingoperations are performed by affiliates in step 1216 to accept the SEOcontent for publication in step 1217. For example, another affiliate mayelect to publish SEO content that is complementary to content theygenerate themselves. However, if it is determined in step 1214 thatother affiliates do not elect to accept the SEO content, or if they doso in step 1216, then ongoing operations are performed in step 1218 forenterprises, affiliates, or both, to post a “bounty” (i.e., an offer forcompensation) for content creation. Thereafter, ongoing operation areperformed in step 1220 to track authors, the content they generate,their corresponding reputation ratings, and the monetary value theyreceive as compensation for providing the content. Content syndicationoperations are then ended in step 1222.

FIG. 13 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of billboardmanagement operations as implemented in accordance with an embodiment ofthe invention. In this embodiment, online billboard managementoperations familiar to those of skill in the art are begun in step 1320,followed by the ongoing aggregation of the most popular product contentin step 1304. A micro site, such as a small, specialized web site, isthen created in step 1306, followed by ongoing operations in step 1309to determine high rankings for challenging key words used in searchesfor product information. Ongoing operations are then performed in step1310 to drive traffic to affiliate social commerce storefronts, such asusing the high ranking challenging key words in search engineoptimization (SEO) operations known to skilled practitioners of the art.Thereafter, ongoing operations are performed in step 1312 to determinehigh ranking niche focus key words, followed by ongoing operations beingperformed by affiliates in step 1314 to drive traffic to theirstorefronts, and accordingly, receive compensation from a merchant fordoing so. In step 1316, ongoing operations are performed by the merchantto challenge small affiliates to challenge the sales performance oflarger affiliates. Online billboard management operations are then endedin step 1318.

FIG. 14 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of productcategorization operations as implemented in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, product categorizationoperations are begun in step 1402, followed by the receipt of recurringdata feeds of catalog data from a vendor, merchant or other productsource in step 1404. The catalog data is then processed in step 1406 toacquire stock keeping units (SKUs) related to an individual vendor,merchant or other product source, their corresponding merchant categorypairs, Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs), and manufacturer part numbers(MPNs). As used herein, a merchant category pair refers to a pairing ofan individual vendor, merchant or other product source and apredetermined product category.

A SKU categorization file is then generated in step 1408, followed bythe addition of a SKU category column to the SKU categorization file instep 1410. Then, in step 1412, target product catalog data feeds areconsolidated into batches for processing. The consolidated productcatalog data is processed to identify products that have neither a MTNnor a GTIN (MPN|GTIN). Catalog product data is then selected forprocessing in step 1412, followed by a determination being made in step1414 whether the selected catalog product data comprises MPN|GTIN data.If so, then a products crawler system, such as a web crawler systemfamiliar to those of skill in the art, is accessed and the selectedcatalog product data is inputted in step 1418. The products crawler thenperforms a search in step 1420 for the MPN|GTIN associated with theselected product data. It will be appreciated by those of skill in theart that in various embodiments the product crawler may be implementedto crawl web pages, sites, and other data repositories residing on theInternet at-large, private and proprietary data repositories, or both.

A determination is then made in step 1422 whether the product crawlerhas identified additional product data corresponding to the MPN|GTINassociated with the selected product data. If so, then a determinationis made in step 1424 whether only one product category is listed for theMPN|GTIN. If not, then a determination is made in step 1426 whether theproduct category is listed within the master product catalog. If so,then the product crawler selects the first product category out of a setof listed categories in step 1428. Thereafter, or if it was determinedin step 1424 that only one product category was listed, the productcrawler selects the first search result. Then, in step 1432, the productcrawler captures all required details from product content associatedwith the link to the first search result. The product crawler thenmatches the captured MPN|GTIN to the MPN|GTIN returned in the productcrawler search in step 1434, followed by making a determination in step1436 whether the product details between the two MPN|GTIN are similar.If not, or if it was determined in step 1416 that the MPN|GTIN was notavailable, or in step 1422 that the product crawler did not find aMPN|GTIN, or in step 1426 that a product category was not listed, thenthe product data is sorted on the basis of merchant category and productbrand. Then, in step 1440, a merchant category is selected, followed byselecting the first product brand in the selected merchant category.

A determination is then made in step 1442 whether the product brand inthe selected merchant category is “blank,” (e.g., “generic,” notspecified, etc.). If so, then a check is performed in step 1444 with theassociated product image specifications and product details to ascertaina product brand for each SKU with a “blank” product brand. Adetermination is then made in step 1446 whether the product brand can beverified. If not, then the SKU category within the SKU categorizationfile is assigned a value of “uncategorized” and the process iscontinued, proceeding with step 1440. Otherwise, or if it was determinedin step 1442 that the product brand was not “blank,” then for eachproduct brand under the merchant category, a category assigned by anautomated process is used as a benchmark and to initialize manualcategorization for unmapped products in step 1450. The benchmarkcategory for the product brand is then assigned in step 1452 as thecategory for SKUs in the SKU categorization file.

However, if it was determined in step 1436 that the product detailsbetween the two MPN|GTIN are not similar, then the product crawler setsthe first category as the category for the GTIN in the SKUcategorization file. Thereafter, or after the benchmark category for theproduct brand has been assigned in step 1452, then the product data issorted, based on merchant category, in step 1454. Then, in step 1456,one merchant category at a time is selected, with a final merchantcategory being assigned within the master catalog, based on the leastcommon category applicable for all SKUs within that merchant andmerchant category pair. The product data is then populated in the mastercatalog, followed by a determination in step 1460 whether to end productcategorization operations. If not, then the process is continued,proceeding with step 1412. Otherwise, product categorization operationsare ended in step 1462.

FIG. 15 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of productmoderation operations in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.In this embodiment, product moderation operations are begun in step1502, followed by the receipt of a recurring data feed of “productoffers” in step 1404. As used herein, “product offers” refer to productdata associated with a product being offered for sale, or resale, by amerchant, vendor, manufacturer or other product source. The productoffer data feeds are then processed by various systems associated withthe product moderation process in step 1506 and an automated productcrawler system, such as a web crawler system familiar to those of skillin the art, is run on the URL of a selected product offer in step 1508.

A determination is then made in step 1510 whether the URL associatedwith the selected product offer is broken. If so, then the product offeris automatically or manually rejected in step 1516 and the process iscontinued, proceeding with step 1506. Otherwise, a determination is madein step 1514 whether all MPN|GTIN fields in the product offer are blank.If so, then the product offer is automatically or manually rejected instep 1516 and the process is continued, proceeding with step 1506.Otherwise, in step 1518, the product offer is entered into a workscheduler, a master catalog URL is created, the product offer isassigned to a moderator for auditing, and a moderation page is opened ina separate browser window for the assigned moderator.

The assigned moderator then initiates the audit of an assigned productoffer in step 1520, followed by a determination being made in step 1522whether the title, brand, manufacturer, or MPN|GTIN fields containprofanity. If so, then the product offer is automatically or manuallyrejected in step 1516 and the process is continued, proceeding with step1506. Otherwise, a determination is made in step 1524 whether the brandin the product offer title is different than the brand referenced withinthe product offer itself If so, then the product offer is automaticallyor manually rejected in step 1516 and the process is continued,proceeding with step 1506. Otherwise, a determination is made in step1526 whether the manufacturer in the product offer title is differentthan the brand referenced within the product offer itself. If so, thenthe product offer is automatically or manually rejected in step 1516 andthe process is continued, proceeding with step 1506.

Otherwise, a determination is made in step 1528 whether the productimage associated with the product offer passes image checks. As anexample, the product image may not pass the image check if it containspornography, nudity or profanity. As another example, the product imagemay not pass the image check if shows a product that is different than aproduct described within the title of the product offer or within theproduct offer itself. If it is determined in step 1528 that the productoffer image does not pass the image checks, then the product offer imageis marked as “not passed” in step 1530. Thereafter, or if it wasdetermined in step 1528 that the product offer image passed the imagechecks, then a determination is made in step 1532 whether the GTIN ofthe product offer is different than the GTIN of the product itself. Ifso, then a search is performed in step 1534, using GTIN, MPN, andmanufacturer name as search criteria to perform the search in the mastercatalog.

A determination is then made in step 1536 whether the search yielded anapplicable product. If so, then the product data associated with theapplicable product is used in step 1538 to replace (i.e., “switch”) theproduct data associated with the product offer. The process is thencontinued, proceeding with step 1532. However, if it was determined instep 1538 that the search did not yield an applicable product, then asearch is performed in step 1540 using the MPN, GTIN, manufacturer name,and the title of the product offer as search criteria. A determinationis then made in step 1542 whether the search yielded an applicableproduct. If not, the product offer data feed is queried in step 1544 todetermine the Global Unique Identifier (GUID) associated with theproduct offer. The GUID is then used to perform a search of the masterproduct catalog and the process is then continued, proceeding with step1536.

However, if it is determined in step 1542 that the search yields anapplicable product, then a new product is created in the master catalogin step 1548 and populated with the details associated with the productoffer. Any information specific to the merchant, vendor or other sourceof the product offer is then removed from the new product listing instep 1550. A determination is then made in step 152 whether the productimage associated with the new product listing is specific to themerchant, vendor or other source of the product offer. If so, then theproduct image associated with the product offer is marked as“unavailable” in step 1554. Thereafter, or if the product imageassociated with the new product listing is not specific to the merchant,vendor or other source of the product offer, the process is continued,proceeding with step 1532.

However, if it is determined in step 1532 that the GTIN of the productoffer is not different from the GTIN of the product itself, then adetermination is made in step 1556 whether the product GTIN containsprofanity. If so, then the process is continued, proceeding with step1534. Otherwise, a determination is made in step 1558 whether the MPN,manufacturer name, or product brand in the product offer is the same asthe product itself. If not, then a determination is made in step 1560whether any related product offers are mapped to the product itself. Ifso, then a determination is made in step 1562 whether the MPN,manufacturer name, or product brand in the product offer containsprofanity. If so, then the process is continued, proceeding with step1534. Otherwise, an edit function is implemented in step 1564 tomanually or automatically delete the profanity from MPN, manufacturername, or product brand in the product offer and the process iscontinued, proceeding with step 1534. However, if it is determined instep 1560 that no other product offers are mapped to the product itself,then the product detail is manually or automatically edited in step 1566to have the same MPN, manufacturer name, or product brand as the otherproduct offer.

Thereafter, or if it is determined in step 1558 that the MPN,manufacturer name, or product brand in the product offer is the same asthe product itself, a determination is made in step 1568 whether themanufacturer name or product brand contains profanity. If so, then theproduct offer is either manually or automatically edited in step 1570 tohave the same product brand and manufacturer name as in the relatedproduct offer or any identified profanity is deleted. Thereafter, or ifis determined in step 1568 that there is no profanity in themanufacturer name or product brand, then a determination is made in step1572 whether the product image associated with the product offer ismarked “not passed.” If so, then an “unavailable image” is selected instep 1574 as the product image. Otherwise, a determination is made instep 1576 whether the product image passes image checks. If not, then aproduct offer image is selected in step 1578 as the product image in themaster catalog, or alternatively, an “unavailable image” is selected ifthe product offer image has merchant-related text. Otherwise, or oncethe product offer images have respectively selected in steps 1574 or1578, the product offer is approved in step 1580. A determination isthen made in step 1582 whether to end product moderation operations. Ifnot, then the process is continued, proceeding with step 1506.Otherwise, product moderation operations are ended in step 1584.

FIG. 16 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of socialcommerce recommendation operations as implemented in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, social commercerecommendation operations are begun in step 1602, followed by theperformance of social commerce storefront preparation and customizationoperations in step 1604 as described in greater detail herein. Then, instep 1606, the affiliate's social commerce storefront is launched,followed by the importation in step 1608 of the affiliate's friends,family and associates from one or more social media environments, suchas a social network. The products within the affiliate's social commercestorefront are then matched in step 1610 to the respective interests ofthe affiliate's friends, family and associates.

A determination is then made in step 1612 whether to create an offer forthe affiliate's friends, family or associates. If so, then ongoingoperations are performed in step 1614 to create the offer. In variousembodiments, the offer is created for an individual, a subset, or agrouping of the friends, family and associates. In one embodiment, theoffer is created according to search terms used by individual socialmedia users within the friends, family or associates. In anotherembodiment, the offer is created according to prior purchases made byindividual social media users within the friends, family or associates.In yet another embodiment, the offer is created according to socialcommerce content that individual social media users within the friends,family or associates have accessed. In still another embodiment, theoffer is created according to social commerce data associated with theaffiliate's social commerce storefront. In this and other embodiments,the social commerce data is provided to the affiliate by the merchant.Those of skill in the art will recognize that many such embodiments arepossible and the foregoing is not intended to limit the spirit, scope orintent of the invention.

However, if it is decided not to create an offer in step 1612, or if theoffer is created in step 1614, then ongoing operations are performed instep 1616 to display current and prior offers in-line within a socialmedia environment to predetermined friends, family and associates.Ongoing operations are then performed in-line by users (e.g., friends,family and associates) of a social media environment to purchaseproducts associated with the offers in step 1616. In step 1620, ongoingoperations are performed to process the user's search term, browsing,purchase transaction, and other historical data to generate productrecommendations, which are then displayed in-line within the socialmedia environments to the users in step 1622. In one embodiment, theproduct recommendation comprises a promotional offer. Ongoing operationsare then performed by the users in step 1624 to purchase the recommendedproducts in-line within the social media environments and socialcommerce recommendation operations are ended in step 1626.

FIG. 17 shows the selection of a merchant's products within a userinterface window implemented in accordance with an embodiment of theinvention to generate an offer. In this embodiment, a social commercestorefront management module, as described in greater detail herein, isimplemented within a window 1704 of a user interface (UI) 1702. As shownin FIG. 17, the UI window 1704 comprises a ‘Products’ tab 1706, aplurality of product selection command buttons 1708, and correspondingproduct data display fields 1710. In various embodiments, an affiliateuses the plurality of product selection command buttons 1708, andcorresponding product data display fields 1710 to select a product for arecommendation or an offer as described in greater detail herein.

FIG. 18 shows the creation of an offer to a social media user within auser interface window implemented in accordance with an embodiment ofthe invention. In this embodiment, a social commerce storefrontmanagement module, as described in greater detail herein, is implementedwithin a window 1804 of a user interface (UI) 1802. As shown in FIG. 18,the UI window 1804 comprises an ‘Messages’ tab 1806, an ‘Offer’ dataentry form 1808, and a “Recent Offers” display sub-window comprising aplurality of recent offers. As likewise shown in FIG. 18, the ‘Offer’data entry form 1808 further comprises a plurality of offer data entryfields 1810 and a plurality of product selection thumbnails 1812. Invarious embodiments, the ‘Offer’ data entry form 1808 and the pluralityof product selection thumbnails 1812 are used by the affiliate togenerate an offer or a recommendation.

In these and other embodiments, the offer or recommendation is createdfor an individual, a subset, or a grouping of friends, family andassociates. In one embodiment, the offer is created according to searchterms used by individual social media users within the friends, familyor associates. In another embodiment, the offer is created according toprior purchases made by individual social media users within thefriends, family or associates. In yet another embodiment, the offer iscreated according to social commerce content that individual socialmedia users within the friends, family or associates have accessed. Instill another embodiment, the offer is created according to socialcommerce data associated with the affiliate's social commercestorefront. In one embodiment, the recommendation comprises apromotional offer. In these various embodiments, the social commercedata is provided to the affiliate by the merchant. Those of skill in theart will recognize that many such embodiments are possible and theforegoing is not intended to limit the spirit, scope or intent of theinvention.

FIG. 19 shows a product offer and its corresponding social commerce datawithin a user interface window implemented in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, a social commercestorefront management module, as described in greater detail herein, isimplemented within a window 1904 of a user interface (UI) 1902. As shownin FIG. 19, the UI window 1904 comprises an ‘Products’ tab 1906, an‘Offer’ display sub-window 1908, and a plurality of social commerceperformance measurement metrics 1914 associated with the offer andcorresponding data 1916. As likewise shown in FIG. 19, the ‘Offer’display sub-window 1908 comprises a plurality of product data 1910associated with the offer and a graphic 1912 of the product.

FIG. 20 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of socialcommerce community management operations as implemented in accordancewith an embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, social commercecommunity management operations are begun in 2002, followed by theongoing performance of community management operations in 2004. As anexample, a merchant may manage a plurality of communities of interestthat are associated with single or multiple social media environments.In various embodiments, these communities of interest may likewise beassociated with individual or multiple affiliates and affiliatenetworks. Many such embodiments are possible and the foregoing is notintended to limit the spirit, scope or intent of the invention.

In step 2006, ongoing operations are performed to integrate blogs,forums, and various other social commerce content with the reputationrating of various affiliates. Ongoing operations are then performed instep 2008 to monitor web content and other data at predetermined websites, followed by ongoing operations in step 2010 to invite affiliatesto contribute social commerce content and participate in various socialcommerce activities and promotions. In step 2012, ongoing operations areperformed to increase the search engine optimization (SEO) ranking ofthe merchant's web site, and the presentation of associated products,through affiliate links as described in greater detail herein. Ongoingoperations are then performed in step 2014 to increase revenue byupselling products in order to increase product sales as well as theperformance of targeted advertisement placement. In step 2016, ongoingsupport operations are performed for a base of advocates to growpredetermined communities of interest. Ongoing operations are thenperformed in step 2018 to track community of interest activity andcorresponding share of market voice. Social commerce communityoperations are then ended in step 2020.

FIG. 21 shows the display of social commerce data associated with apredetermined affiliate within a user interface window implemented inaccordance with an embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, asocial commerce storefront management module, as described in greaterdetail herein, is implemented within a window 2104 of a user interface(UI) 2102. As shown in FIG. 21, the UI window 2104 comprises an‘Affiliates’ tab 2106, a ‘Send Email’ 2112 command button and a ‘SendOffer’ command button 2114. As likewise shown in FIG. 21, the UI window2104 comprises a plurality of data 2108 associated with a predeterminedaffiliate, and a “Product Activity” 2110 sub-window displaying datacorresponding to social commerce content associated with the affiliate'ssocial commerce storefront. The UI window 2104 likewise comprises‘Account Information’ 2116, ‘Items Sold’ 2118, ‘Commissions Paid’ 2120,and ‘Account Notes’ 2122 data display windows, each of which displaysassociated social commerce data.

FIG. 22 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of socialcommerce multilevel marketing management operations as implemented inaccordance with an embodiment of the invention. In various embodiments,an affiliate of a merchant comprises a plurality of associatedaffiliates. As an example, an enterprise such as a corporation thatprovides consulting services may have multiple consultants, each ofwhich is an associate affiliate by extension. In these and otherembodiments, each associate affiliate may have one or more correspondingsocial commerce storefront that is unique to the associate affiliate. Inthis embodiment, enterprise multilevel marketing (MLM) operations arebegun in step 2202, followed by the ongoing performance of MLMmanagement operations to establish individual social commercestorefronts for each associate affiliate.

In step 2206, ongoing operations are performed by individual associateaffiliates to customize and manage their respective social commercestorefront, followed by ongoing operations being performed in step 2208to monitor their activities and provide guidance. In step 2210, ongoingsales transactions are performed, as described in greater detail herein,within each associate affiliate's social commerce storefront, followedby ongoing operations being performed in step 2212 to maintain merchantproduct stock levels. Ongoing operations are then performed in step 2214to provide MLM activity updates to the associate affiliates, includingthrough delivery to a mobile device, and ongoing operations areperformed in step 2216 to track the associate affiliates' activities,successes, and effect on the merchant's brand value. Enterprise socialcommerce MLM activities are then ended in step 2218.

FIG. 23 shows the display of social commerce data associated with apredetermined multilevel marketing (MLM) affiliate within a userinterface window implemented in accordance with an embodiment of theinvention. In this embodiment, a social commerce storefront managementmodule, as described in greater detail herein, is implemented within awindow 2304 of a user interface (UI) 2302. As shown in FIG. 23, the UIwindow 2304 comprises an ‘Affiliates’ tab 2306, a MLM ‘AccountInformation’ 2312 data display window displaying a plurality of socialcommerce data associated with an MLM affiliate. The UI window 2304likewise comprises a merchant MLM ‘Managers’ 2314 data display windowdisplaying data associated with a merchant's MLM affiliate managers. Aslikewise shown in FIG. 23, the UI window 2304 comprises a ‘FlaggedAffiliates’ data display window 2316 displaying various MLM associateaffiliates that have been flagged for suspension and a ‘Blocked KeyWords’ 2318 command button panel. The UI window 2304 likewise comprisesa “Product Activity” 2310 sub-window displaying data corresponding tosocial commerce content associated with various MLM associateaffiliates' social commerce storefronts.

FIG. 24 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of socialcommerce listening operations as implemented in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, social commercelistening operations are begun in step 2401, followed by ongoingoperations in step 2404 to monitor social commerce content associatedwith affiliates. In step 2406, ongoing operations are performed tomonitor non-social-commerce content within various social mediaenvironments and associated communities of interest, followed by ongoingoperations in step 2408 to monitor non-social-commerce content withinvarious predetermined web sites. Ongoing operations are then performedin step 2410 to display the merchant's brand, product mentions,sentiment, and sales within various social commerce venues, followed byoperations being performed in step 2412 to display competitor's brands,product competition, and search engine optimization (SEO) weaknesses.

In step 2414, ongoing operations are performed to provide various socialmedia content authors with promotional deals, additional source content,or invitations to become an affiliate of the merchant. Ongoingoperations are then performed in step 2416 to monitor social commercecontent provided by affiliates, followed by ongoing operations in step2418 to post product mentions on the respective product page withinvarious affiliate social commerce storefronts. In step 2420, ongoingoperations are performed to track social commerce activity leading tosales of purchasable products and social commerce listening operationsare ended in step 2422.

FIG. 25 shows the display of social commerce data associated with aplurality of affiliates marketing a plurality of merchant productswithin a user interface window implemented in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, a social commercestorefront management module, as described in greater detail herein, isimplemented within a window 2504 of a user interface (UI) 2502. As shownin FIG. 25, the UI window 2504 comprises a ‘Listening’ tab 2506, a‘Dashboard’ graphics window 2508 displaying a graphical depiction ofsales activity associated with a plurality of affiliates, and acorresponding data display 2510 window displaying associated socialcommerce summary data. As likewise shown in FIG. 25, the UI window 2504comprises a ‘Categories’ graphics window 2512 graphically depictingvarious products. The UI window 2504 likewise comprises a corresponding‘Product Trends’ 2514 data display window displaying product trend dataassociated with various products graphically depicted in the‘Categories’ graphics window 2512.

FIG. 26 shows the display of social commerce data associated with aplurality of merchant products within a user interface windowimplemented in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. In thisembodiment, a social commerce storefront management module, as describedin greater detail herein, is implemented within a window 2604 of a userinterface (UI) 2602. As shown in FIG. 26, the UI window 2604 comprisesan ‘Affiliates’ tab 2606, a plurality of social commerce metrics 2610corresponding to a plurality of products sold in various social commercestorefronts.

FIG. 27 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of social scorewidget creation operations as implemented in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. In various embodiments, a social scorerecommendation widget is implemented to evaluate a visitor's socialidentity across multiple third party social sites. The resultingevaluation is then used to determine what to display (e.g., torecommend) to the user based on their social score. As used herein, asocial score broadly refers to a numeric value, or set of values, thatrepresents the user's relative value based on their influence, reach andengagement level within one or more social networks. In these variousembodiments, the user's social score provides merchants and other typesof organizations to dynamically present special offers. Such offers aretypically presented in the context of recommendations for predeterminedproducts, product offers or deals, and content (e.g., articles, videos,ratings, reviews, etc.). The recommendations are based on the user'sperceived value, or importance, to the organization with the goal ofinducing an interaction with the visitor. Likewise, social scorerecommendations can be combined with other types of recommendations andalgorithms to further target offers to visitors based not only on theirsocial score, but other factors that increase the likelihood of thevisitor to take action and interact with the recommendation.

Referring now to FIG. 27, social score widget creation operations arebegun in step 2702, followed by the definition of social score discountrules in step 2704. In various embodiments, the social score discountrules are defined by a user and then stored within the socialmarketplace system. The social score discount rules, as described ingreater detail herein, are then used by a recommendation engine toevaluate a visitor when they interact with a social score recommendationor recommendation widget.

In one embodiment, the social score discount rules are defined throughthe use of a point-and-click user interface (UI) to create the rules, incombination with matching criteria associated with predetermined socialscores, such as:

-   -   visitor's social score=35    -   visitor's social score<=45    -   visitor's social score>=35 and visitor has an average order        value>=$52.00    -   visitor's social score is between 35 and 75    -   visitor's social score for a predetermined social network<=25    -   visitor's third party social score>20

In this and other embodiments, the rules and matching criteria are savedin a repository for late reuse. A social score widget is then created instep 2706. In various embodiments, a user accesses a widget creationmodule within the social commerce marketplace system and elects tocreate a social score widget. A subset of available assets is thenselected by the user for display to a visitor within the widget. In oneembodiment, the user associates the aforementioned social score rules toeach selected asset to control:

-   -   whether to display the asset in the widget    -   the order to display asset in the widget    -   whether to offer a discounts    -   the amount of discount to apply to the asset    -   which images to display

To further the example, the following table illustrates how socialscores can be used to dynamically control what is presented orrecommended to visitors based on their social score:

Asset Rules assigned to Asset Example Product X Display Rule = Onlydisplay Visitor visits site with a Social if visitor's social Score typewidget and has a score >=30 social score of 37. Product X would bedisplayed within the widget for the user Discount Do not offer discountif Visitor would be displayed a to display visitor's social score <2020% discount within the 10% discount if visitors social widget forProduct X score is between 20 and 30 20% discount if visitors socialscore is between 30 and 40 50% discount if visitors social score >40Display Display first if visitor's social The first product the visitororder in score >=35 would see in the widget would widget be Product X

In one embodiment, the visitor's social score is used by therecommendation engine to control whether or not to display arecommendation and to likewise determine the type of widget to display.It will be appreciated that many such controls are possible and theforegoing is not intended to limit the spirit, scope or intent of theinvention.

Once the social score widget creation process is completed in step 2706,it is published in step 2708 to the social commerce marketplace system,which finalizes its configuration and activates it for use. The socialscore widget is then embedded within a target host site in step 2710. Inone embodiment, the social score widget is published to a third partysocial network site using the target site's Application ProgramInterface (API). In another embodiment, the social score widget isembedded by copying the widget's code, and optional JavaScript tags, toa target website's Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) code. In anotherembodiment, the social score widget is automatically embedded into asocial network store web page. In yet another embodiment, the socialscore widget is implemented to enhance a at target's HTML code throughRepresentational State Transfer (REST) API calls to invoke the widget.Skilled practitioners of the art will recognize that other embodimentsare possible and that the foregoing is not intended to limit the spirit,scope or intent of the invention. A determination is then made in step2712 whether to end social score widget creation operations. If not,then the process is continued, proceeding with step 2702. Otherwise,social score widget creation operations are ended in step 2714.

FIG. 28 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of social scorewidget recommendation operations as implemented in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. In various embodiments, a social scorerecommendation widget is executed as a target web page loads that willdynamically present offers and discounts based on the user's socialscore. In this embodiment, social score widget recommendation operationsare begun in step 2802, followed by a user visiting a web page in step2804 within which a social score widget has been embedded. In oneembodiments, the social score widget has been explicitly embedded withinthe web page as described in greater detail herein. In anotherembodiment, the UI for the social score widget is dynamically createdand rendered by calling a REST API and manipulating a returned object ofExtensible Mark-up Language (XML) code.

In step 2806, the social score recommendation widget retrieves thevisitor's social identity, social graph information, and social sitehistory from the social commerce marketplace system. As used herein,social graph information refers to information that describes the onlinerelationship between a plurality of users. In one embodiment, the socialcommerce marketplace system authenticates to multiple third party socialnetworking sites to retrieve the users' social identity and history.

Then, in step 2808, the afore-mentioned social information associatedwith the visitor is analyzed and associated calculations are performedto generate a social score that represents the visitor's relative valueto the organization. In one embodiment, the calculated social score issaved to the social commerce marketplace system so it can be reused byother modules when performing their associated operations. In anotherembodiment, as described in greater detail herein, the social commercemarketplace system uses information retrieved from various socialnetwork sites to calculate multiple social scores for the user. Invarious embodiments, different social scores may include:

-   -   a Holistic Social Score, based on the analysis of visitor data        from all third party social sites    -   an Individual Social Score, based on the analysis of visitor        data from a single target social site (e.g., Facebook®,        Twitter®, Tumblr®, Google+®, etc.)    -   a Third Party Social Score, provided by a third party social        scoring service

In various embodiments, the calculated social score is generated byusing one or more social facets to create two types of social scores. Asan example, a social score associated with an individual may becalculated according to analysis of the following attributes:

-   -   Influence        -   # of followers on social networks        -   # & frequency of re-tweets/mentions by others about the            user's content        -   Scores of followers/re-tweeters        -   Sentiment score of comments/posts/mentions by others        -   Sentiment score of the comments/posts by the user    -   Engagement        -   # & frequency of posts by user        -   # of likes by others about the user and the user's content        -   # of mentions by others        -   # of comments posted by others on the user's posts        -   # average time others spend on the user pages        -   Average frequency others visit or revisit the user's            site/pages    -   Reach        -   # of blogs        -   # of followers on social networks        -   # of visits to the user's social pages        -   # of visitor to the user's blog sites        -   # of backlinks        -   blog site page rank

To further the example, a social score associated with a product or itsassociated brand may likewise be calculated according to analysis of thefollowing attributes:

-   -   Influence        -   # of followers on social networks        -   # & frequency tweets/mentions by others that contain the            brand or product name        -   Scores of followers/re-tweeters        -   Sentiment score of comments/posts/mentions by others    -   Engagement        -   # & frequency of posts by Brand/Product        -   # of likes by others about the Brand/Product and its social            site/page content        -   # of mentions by others        -   # of comments posted by others on the Brand/Products posts        -   # average time others spend on the Brand/Product pages        -   Average frequency others visit or revisit the            Brand/Product's site/pages    -   Reach        -   # of blogs        -   # of followers on social networks        -   # of visits to the Brand/Product's social pages        -   # of visits for blog sites        -   # of backlinks        -   Blog site page rank

Then, in step 2810, the social score recommendation widget executes thesocial scoring rules described in step 2806 to determine what type ofwidget will be displayed, the content (e.g., products, offers, deals,etc.) it will contain, and the order in which it will be displayed.Thereafter, the contents of the social score recommendation wizard arepresented to the user in step 2812, followed by a determination in step2814 whether to end social score recommendation widget recommendations.If not, then the process is continued, proceeding with step 2802.Otherwise, social score recommendation widget operations are ended instep 2816.

FIG. 29 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of socialidentity acquisition operations as implemented in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. In various embodiments, the social scorerecommendation widget described in the descriptive text of FIG. 29attempts to retrieve the visitor's social identity, social graphinformation, and social site history from the social commercemarketplace system. If this information is not available from thesystem, or if it is incomplete, then the system authenticates to one ormore third party social networking sites to retrieve this information.In this embodiment, beginning with step 2902, the social commercemarketplace system initiates operations associated with step 2906 ofFIG. 29, followed by receiving a visitor at a target site such as alanding page.

A determination is then made in step 2906 whether the target site hasone or more social network IDs for the visitor. If so, then the socialnetwork IDs are persisted in step 2908. In one embodiment, the visitor'sclickstream data, session information, and collected cookie informationis likewise persisted. This authentication and associated information isthen used to request access to their corresponding social network sitesin step 2910. In various embodiments, the social score recommendationwidget uses JavaScript code and REST APIs that have been implemented ateach respective host site to present the visitor's social siteauthentication information, such as:

“id”: “220439”, “name”: “Bret Taylor”, “first_name”: “Bret”,“last_name”: “Taylor”, “link”: “http://www.facebook.com/btaylor”,“username”: “btaylor”, “gender”: “male”, “locale”: “en_US”

In one embodiment, authentication information for access to a targetsocial networking site is not available and the user is prompted by thesocial commerce marketplace system to provide the required information.In this embodiment, the system dynamically builds a user interface basedon the authentication information required to access the target socialnetwork site. The user is then asked to login and provide requiredauthentication information to the target social network site. The useris then asked to allow the social commerce marketplace system tothereafter access the required authentication information from theuser's account. In another embodiment, the user elects to skip thisprocess. In this embodiment, the social commerce marketplace systemprompts the user to authorize it to access specific data. The user thenhas the option to either authorize limited access for each socialnetwork or to skip the process altogether.

A determination is then made in step 2912 whether the social commercemarketplace system is granted access to the one or more social networksites as a result of the provision of the aforementioned authenticationinformation. If so, then each of the social network sites is accessed instep 2914 to retrieve the visitor's associated social graph and history.

Those of skill in the art will realize that each social network sitewill likely have a different set of information available for retrieval,such as:

-   -   age of account    -   relationships to other users, accounts and objects in the social        network    -   posts (text, links & images) they have made to their account    -   posts (text, links & images) they have made to other accounts    -   posts (text, links & images) others have made within their        account    -   likes    -   backlinks to their account, pages and posts    -   events they like or are following    -   groups they like, joined or are following    -   tweets    -   re-tweets    -   mentions    -   applications they have associations to    -   photos    -   videos    -   check-ins    -   notes    -   searches within the social network (date/time & keywords)

Thereafter, or if it was determined in step 2906 that the target sitedoes not have a social network ID for the user, or in step 2912 that thesystem is not granted access to any of the social network sites, then adetermination is made in step 2916 whether to end social identityacquisition operations. If not, then the process is continued,proceeding with step 2904. Otherwise, social identity acquisitionoperations are ended in step 2918.

FIGS. 30 a-b are a generalized flow chart of the performance of searchengine optimization (SEO) goal attainment operations as implemented inaccordance with an embodiment of the invention. In various embodiments,a SEO algorithm is implemented in a syndicated commerce environment topredict the amount of financial compensation an individual or socialcommerce marketplace entity can receive from the sale of a predeterminedproduct. In certain embodiments, the SEO algorithm is furtherimplemented to optimize their web pages to increase site traffic, and asa result, the likelihood of reaching their financial goals.

In these and other embodiments, the SEO algorithm determines keywordoptions for a predetermined product based upon the product'sdescription, its web page content, and other related information. Thesocial commerce marketplace system then uses the SEO algorithm todetermine the product's associated search traffic and rank-per-keywordfrom various search engines. This information, in addition to salesconversion rate information, is used to estimate the likelihood ofmonetization for a single keyword or a group of keywords. In certainembodiments, the SEO algorithm refines its estimates by tracking andanalyzing historical purchase records for a given path and visitorsegment. The system then automatically modifies the website pages withoptimal combinations of keywords. Once optimized, various search enginesare automatically notified of the changes to the web pages to improveorganic search rankings.

In various embodiments, the SEO algorithm determines the competitivenessfor a predetermined keyword and then assigns it a “level of difficulty”for a user to succeed in organic search optimization. Likewise, the“level of difficulty” is used by the SEO algorithm to determine how muchmoney the user could potentially earn selling products that correspondto a given level of difficulty. In these and other embodiments, the“level of difficulty” is further refined according to analysis of theuser's generated content and any additional data the social commercemarketplace system can capture from a visitor to the user's website. TheSEO algorithm then determines the likelihood of a relationship orvisitor associated with the user's social graph to purchase apredetermined product. Once the likelihood is determined, the socialcommerce marketplace system creates tasks for the user, monitors theprogress of their completion, and makes ongoing recommendations toassist the user in reaching their revenue goals. In one embodiment, acrawler sub-module is implemented with the SEO algorithm to crawl apredetermined domain or website to analyze the market opportunity orfinancial value of the site. In this embodiment, the output of theanalysis is a list of markets to target, and a list of recommendationsand tasks to complete, to capitalize on each opportunity.

Referring now to FIG. 30, SEO goal operations are begun in step 3002 topredict the estimated revenue of a predetermined product, followed byaddition of the predetermined product from a store's catalog to a socialcommerce storefront in step 3004. In various embodiments, the socialcommerce marketplace system automatically creates an associated productdetails page within the store when the product is added. In these andother embodiments, the product details page comprises merchant,manufacturer, or store owner-defined content such as a product title anddescriptions. In various embodiments, the store owner can optionallycreate additional product content and metadata, such as:

-   -   Title    -   Short Description    -   Long Description    -   Friendly (vanity) URLs    -   Keywords    -   Specifications    -   Ratings    -   Reviews    -   Product Blog    -   Posts to third party social sites about the product

Then, in step 3006, manufacturer links, such as Uniform ResourceLocators (URLs), provided in the catalog feeds described in greaterdetail herein are used by the social commerce marketplace system asprimary sources to crawl for product content. In one embodiment, thesocial commerce marketplace system submits a search request to a searchengine to obtain links to crawl if the manufacturer links are notincluded in the feed. In various embodiments, the crawled content isindexed and used by other process steps described in greater detailherein to identify keywords and high value content.

The social commerce marketplace system then acquires the domainsincluded in the merchant's catalog feed(s) as well as the highest rankedpages within predetermined search engines in step 3008. Then, in step3010, the acquired domains and website URLs (i.e., backlinks) aresubmitted to predetermined search engines, as well as other data serviceproviders, to retrieve the number, quality, trust, and other informationabout the inbound links to each domain. In various embodiments, thisinformation is stored within the social commerce marketplace system andis subsequently used to determine the relative competitiveness of othervendors in the market as well as sources to crawl for recommendedcontent and keywords for use in various SEO operations.

Then, in step 3012, social graph information and social site historyfrom predetermined social network sites for the store's social accounts(e.g., store entity, store owner users, etc.) is retrieved. Theretrieved information is then analyzed by the SEO algorithm in step 3014to identify high-value keywords, content, backlinks and influencers forthe product within the social graph(s). In various embodiments, theretrieved product information may be contained in social objects such as“wall posts,” comments, “tweets,” profiles, stores, events, etc. Invarious embodiments, the retrieved content is semantically analyzed todetermine the sentiment (i.e., the “tone” of the content) for eachextracted element. In certain of these various embodiments, the socialcommerce marketplace system scores the retrieved keywords and contentaccording to the source's authoritative value and the content creator'ssocial influence (e.g., their digital worth score).

As used herein, authoritative value broadly refers to the contextualrelationship of a keyword to the overall theme of its associated contentsource. As an example, the search term “Lincoln automobile” may returnthe phrase “the Lincoln automobile is named after President AbrahamLincoln,” where the content source is a first web page primarilyoriented to the history of President Lincoln. In this example,authoritative value is low. As another example, the same search term mayreturn the same phrase, but from a second web page primarily oriented tothe history of the Lincoln automobile. In this example, theauthoritative value is high.

As likewise used herein, social influence broadly refers to the level ofinfluence a user of a social networking environment is capable ofexerting upon a predetermined market segment. In various embodiments, adigital worth score is derived from a user's social influence. As usedherein, a digital worth score refers to a numeric value, or set ofvalues, associated with a predetermined user's social influence. As anexample, a user may write a blog extolling the virtues of a product,with the result that a high percentage of the readers of the blogpurchase the product. In this example, the writer of the blog would havea high digital worth score. In these and other embodiments, thefinancial value of the associated purchase(s) of the referenced productis used to determine the digital worth score.

In various embodiments, the SEO algorithm uses additional informationassociated with the content authors and influencers that is storedwithin the social commerce marketplace system, including their:

-   -   name    -   email addresses    -   IP Address    -   geographic location    -   preferences

The social commerce marketplace system then retrieves availablehistorical clickstream web analytics information in step 3016. Invarious embodiments, the analytics information is retrieved fromcorporate web sites associated with the store owner that contain productor product related information. The analytics information is thenprocessed to generate inputs for the SEO algorithm in step 3018. Invarious embodiments, the retrieved analytics information includes:

-   -   Web Analytics Data        -   Visitor personal information (e.g., name, demographics,            prior purchase history, etc.)        -   Referring keywords (e.g., associated with source, visitor,            geo-location, temporal information, etc.)        -   Conversion Data    -   Listing Platform Data        -   Content        -   Source (e.g., person or entity)        -   Sentiment        -   Media (e.g., web, television, radio, etc.)        -   Location

One or more authoritative sites are then crawled in step 3020 todetermine keywords and content related to the product, which mayinclude:

-   -   titles    -   product name    -   descriptions    -   ratings    -   reviews    -   pricing    -   discounts    -   offers    -   location(s)

As used herein, an authoritative site broadly refers to the contextualrelationship of individual content elements within a content source.

To extend the previously-used example, the phrase “the Lincolnautomobile is named after President Abraham Lincoln,” in a first webpage primarily oriented to the history of President Lincoln may not beconsidered to be an authoritative site on the Lincoln automobile.Conversely, the same phrase in a second web page primarily oriented tothe history of the Lincoln automobile may be considered to be anauthoritative site on the Lincoln automobile.

Once the product has been added to the on-line store, the socialcommerce marketplace system semantically extracts topics, themes andkeywords from the product's content and associated metadata in step3022. In various embodiments, such content and associated metadatacomprises:

-   -   merchant or manufacturer-defined content (e.g., titles,        descriptions, promotion, pricing, etc.)    -   store owner-defined content    -   content defined by other store owners    -   visitor-generated content    -   third party content and data sources (e.g., backlinks)

In various embodiments, additional third party data related to theproduct is extracted and stored within the social commerce marketplacesystem, including:

-   -   sales information, such as:        -   number of units manufactured and sold        -   average sales price        -   sales location    -   ratings and reviews    -   demographics related to owners of the product

A list of keywords, themes and topics from the previous process steps,along with any additional keywords that were extracted for the samecatalog product when it was last added or analyzed for other stores isthen generated in step 302424. The resulting list is then submitted tovarious search engines as well as other data service providers toretrieve additional information in step 3026. Search resultscorresponding to each element of the submitted list is then received instep 3028. In various embodiments, the search results include:

-   -   keyword ideas, referring to additional sets of keywords that are        related to the submitted keyword    -   local search traffic, referring to the number of searches        submitted to the search engine for a predetermined geographic        region    -   global search traffic, referring to the number of searches        submitted to the search engine by all Internet users    -   mobile search traffic, referring to the number of searches        submitted to the search engine via mobile devices    -   frequency, referring to the frequency that the keyword is        searched    -   competition, referring to the relative frequency of bids        combined with the value and associated ad price of each keyword        within various advertising networks    -   traffic estimation, referring to the estimated traffic, the        estimated number of paid visits, the estimated paid search rank,        and the estimated paid search cost per day    -   category, referring to various businesses, industries, genera's,        etc. that the search engine has determined that the keyword is        most closely associated with    -   domains and websites, referring to a list of the highest-ranked        domain or website for a predetermined keyword    -   demographics, referring to the demographics corresponding to a        set of users that used the keyword    -   purchase|conversion information, referring to a list of products        and prices that a user purchased after searching with a keyword        combined with the corresponding site where the purchase was made    -   ad competition, referring to the relative market competitiveness        of the keyword for a paid search within a commercial search        engine service or within an advertising network    -   vendors|competitive pricing information, referring to a list of        top-performing vendors selling a product associated with a        predetermined product, combined with its current price

The keyword search results received in step 3028 are then analyzed bythe SEO algorithm in step 3030 to generate a keyword score correspondingto each keyword's estimated effect on inbound traffic, conversion rate,competiveness, competitive pricing, and other factors. Then, in step3032, the SEO algorithm uses a variety of SEO formulas and optimizationbest practices to process the keyword scores generated in step 3030 togenerate a ranked list of keywords predicted to result in the highestamount of traffic and conversion rates.

In step 3034, the user (e.g., an online store owner) uses variousfinancial goal information to set financial goals for the product beforeit is published to the online store. In various embodiments, thefinancial goal information may include:

-   -   commissions, referring to the amount of monthly commission        revenue the store owner would like to generate for the product    -   ad revenue, referring to the amount of monthly ad revenue the        store owner would like to generate for the product's associated        product detail page    -   quantity, referring to the number of product units the store        owner would like to sell on a monthly basis

A series of market opportunity (i.e., market penetration) scores arethen generated in step 3036 from the data collected and analyzed in theprevious process steps to identify areas that the product may performwell in (e.g., low competition, high demand, etc.). In variousopportunities, these areas may include

-   -   local market, referring to one or more local geographic areas    -   social network, referring to one or more social networks or        populations (i.e., segments) of users    -   geo-location/region, referring to a state, country, or other        geographic region    -   search marketing, referring to a paid search market for a        predetermined commercial search engine    -   market segment, referring to a group of individuals with similar        characteristics

The social commerce marketplace system then uses the preceding goals,selected list of keywords, and opportunity scores in step 3038 todetermine the estimated traffic and related SEO elements (e.g., thenumber of backlinks links, etc.) required to reach the financial goalsof the online store. Then, in step 3040, the social commerce marketplacesystem calculates the estimated difficulty of achieving the financialgoals, which provides the store owner the information required to make adecision if they should include the product within their online store.In one embodiment, the financial goal information provided in step 3034is presented to the online store owner to show the potential financialopportunity by market segment. It will be appreciated that suchinformation would assist the online store owner in focusing and aligningtheir marketing efforts to those market segments that represent thegreatest financial opportunities.

The product is then saved to the online store and its correspondingproduct details page is published to the online store's website in step3042, followed by a determination being made in step 3044 whether tocontinue SEO goal attainment operations. If so, then the process iscontinued, proceeding with step 3004. Otherwise, SEO goal attainmentoperations are ended in step 3044.

FIG. 31 shows a ranked list of keywords within a user interface windowthat are predicted to result in the highest amount of traffic andcorresponding conversion rates. In this embodiment, a user interface(UI) 3102, such as a web browser, is implemented to comprise a UI window3104, which in turn comprises a plurality of search phrases 3106 thatare ranked according to their predicted ability to result in the highestamount of traffic and corresponding conversions rates.

FIG. 32 shows estimated traffic and SEO elements within a user interfacewindow that are anticipated to affect an online store's ability to reachits financial goals. In this embodiment, a user interface (UI) 3202,such as a web browser, is implemented to comprise a UI window 3204,which in turn comprises a financial goal window 3206 and a requirementswindow 3212 comprising a plurality of estimated traffic and SEO elementsare anticipated to affect an online store's ability to reach itsfinancial goals.

In one embodiment, the financial goal window 3206 comprises a financialgoal amount data entry field 3208 and a ‘Calculate’ command button 3210.In this embodiment, a user enters a financial goal amount in thefinancial goal amount data entry field 3208 and then selects the‘Calculate’ command button 3210. The estimated traffic and SEO elementsrequired to reach the financial goal are calculated and then displayedin the requirements window 3212.

FIG. 33 is a generalized flow chart of the performance of keywordsubmission optimization operations implemented in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. Those of skill in the art will recognizethat the effectiveness of a keyword used within a site, such as anonline storefront, is dependent upon whether it is used in the contextof an authoritative content source, such as a web page containingproduct details. In various embodiments, the SEO algorithm isimplemented to suggest keywords and predict their respective monetarySEO value when used to promote the sale of a product. In these and otherembodiments, the SEO algorithm is likewise implemented to automate HTMLcode updates with associated keywords to make the target pageauthoritative. It will be appreciated that such automation can providenovice users with SEO optimizations that are typically only availablefrom an SEO expert.

In this embodiment, keyword submission optimization operations are begunin step 3302 to automatically insert the keywords generated in step 3024of the process described in the descriptive text of FIG. 30. The socialcommerce marketplace system then automatically inserts theaforementioned keywords into the target webpage's keywords meta tagwithin its associated HTML code in step 3304. In one embodiment, a user(e.g., the online store owner) can manually update the keywords withinthe keywords meta tag at any time through a user interface (UI).

Then, in step 3306, the social commerce marketplace system automaticallyinserts the product title provided by the merchant or a manufacturerinto the webpage's HTML title tag. In one embodiment, a user (e.g. theonline store owner) can manually update the title tag at any timethrough a UI. The social commerce marketplace system then automaticallyinserts the product title provided by the merchant or a manufacturerinto the alt image tag for the product image's URL in step 3308. In oneembodiment, a user (e.g. the online store owner) can manually update thealt image tag at any time through a UI.

A friendly URL that contains text elements from the product's title isthen automatically created by the social commerce marketplace system instep 3310. As used herein, a friendly URL refers to a URL pointing to alocation that references a topic or subject that is indicated in thename of the URL. As an example, the URL may contain the name of aproduct that is promoted within the URL's associated page or site. Then,in step 3312, the social commerce marketplace system automaticallyinserts the product title from the merchant/manufacture into thewebpage's HTML H1 heading tag. In various embodiments, a user (e.g., theonline store owner) can manually update any of the H1 through H6 HTMLheading tags at any time through a UI. In various embodiments, thesocial commerce marketplace system also automatically updates other HTMLelements expected by commercial search engines such as:

-   -   meta content language    -   meta content type    -   meta language    -   meta author    -   meta copyright    -   robots meta tag

The target web page is then published to a production instance of theonline store in step 3314. Once the target web page is published, thesocial commerce marketplace system automatically creates an HTML sitemap for the online store in step 1916 and keeps it updated thereafter.In various embodiments, the web page's index within the site map isupdated whenever a material change (e.g., in its page name, title, URL,etc.) occurs.

Skilled practitioners of the art will be aware that it is common forsearch engine crawlers to use sitemap.xml files to help them index atarget website. To assist such search engine crawlers the sitemap.xmlfile for the online store is automatically updated by the socialcommerce marketplace system in step 3318 whenever there is a materialchange (e.g., new page, URL name change, etc.). Those of skill in theart will likewise be aware that it is also common for search enginecrawlers use robots.txt files to help them understand which areas of thesite to index. To assist such search engine crawlers the robots.txt filefor the online store is automatically updated by the social commercemarketplace system in step 3320 whenever there is a material change(e.g., new page, URL name change, etc.).

Then, in step 3322, the social commerce marketplace system automaticallysubmits the page to various search engines to notify them if there was achange to the online store, such as in the page's HTML elements, itsURL, or if the page was newly created or deleted. The social commercemarketplace system then automatically identifies potential issues andcreates tasks for the user to remedy them in step 3324. In variousembodiments, such issues may include:

-   -   not enough keywords    -   too many keywords    -   recommended product description text    -   add keywords to URLs

A determination is then made is step 3326 whether to end keywordsubmission optimization operations. If not, then the process iscontinued, proceeding with step 3304. Otherwise, keyword submissionoptimization operations are ended in step 3328.

FIG. 34 shows information that is proactively submitted to a commercialsearch engine and its associated SEO effect within a user interfacewindow. In this embodiment, a user interface (UI) 3402, such as a webbrowser, is implemented to comprise a UI window 3404, which in turncomprises a target keywords sub-window 3406, recommendations window3410, and a product description window 3416. As shown in FIG. 34, thetarget keywords sub-window 3406 comprises a plurality of target keywords3408 and the product description window 3416 comprises a plurality ofproduct description data 3418. In various embodiments, the targetkeywords 3408 and the plurality of product description data 3418 isprocessed to generate an SEO optimization prediction 3412 and a list oftasks 3414 to increase the likelihood of an online storefront to achievetheir financial goals.

FIGS. 35 a-b are a generalized flow chart of the performance of productand store performance optimization operations implemented in accordancewith an embodiment of the invention. Skilled practitioners of the artwill recognize that two online stores promoting the same product, andusing the same content and underlying SEO algorithm, can anticipatereceiving approximately the same traffic and recognizing the same salesvolume for the product. As a result, each online store will onlyrecognize approximately half of the available revenue generated by theproduct.

In various embodiments, an SEO algorithm is implemented to mitigate thepotential deterioration of the earning value of a product promoted bysimilar online stores by:

-   -   generating recommendations for changes to online store of        product content, including the generation of content ideas for a        user    -   generating recommendations regarding where their marketing        messages should be syndicated, including automated processed to        efficiently perform the syndication    -   analyzing the online store and store users' social network to        determine its value and then making recommendations to        capitalize on the network's potential    -   generating recommendations and associated tasks to capitalize on        market opportunities

In these and other embodiments, the social commerce marketplace systemevaluates the online store's SEO status, individual product detail pageSEO status, and other factors to generate tasks for a user (e.g., thestore owner) to complete to improve the likelihood of achieving theirrevenue goals

In this embodiment, product and store performance optimizationoperations are begun in step 3502. Then, in step 3504, the socialcommerce marketplace system retrieves social graph informationassociated with a user (e.g., an online store owner), which is then usedto determine their relationships, influence, reach within their network,and the corresponding influence and reach of each of those relationshipsfor the online store and each store user. Based upon each store owner'sdigital worth and social graph, the social commerce marketplace systemthen generates recommended tasks in step 2106 to improve the likelihoodof the online store reaching its financial goals. In variousembodiments, these tasks include:

-   -   comment and posting tasks, including a list of content sources        within each social network that should have a comment or        response posted by the user    -   syndication tasks, including a list of people and the creation        of backlinks to the online store    -   friend request tasks, including a list of users within each        social network the user should build a relationship with due to        the user's influence and digital worth score    -   store creation, including recommendations on the type of online        store to create within each social network and any maintenance        the user should complete to keep the store interesting and        current    -   ads, including recommendations on the type of ads to place        within a specific social network

Then, in step 3508 the social commerce marketplace system recommendssocial networking tasks for the user (e.g., the online store owner),including the creation of new types of blog posts and changes to make toexisting blog posts. In one embodiment, the social commerce marketplacesystem identifies other online store blogs within a social network sitethat the user should consider building backlinks with to mutuallybenefit each party. In another embodiment, the social commercemarketplace systems recommends specific blog sites that have the highestmarket opportunity to attract powerful influencers, who in turn willcreate backlinks to the on line store. In this and other embodiments,the backlinks are created directly through page links, or indirectlythrough re-tweets, wall posts, etc. to drive organic traffic to theonline store. In yet another embodiment, the social commerce marketplacesystem recommends the frequency of updates, content to post, and thetypes of offers to make within the blogs.

In step 3510, the social commerce marketplace system identifies thirdparty influencers and creates recommended tasks that provide both ideasand instructions to obtain backlinks from each target. In oneembodiment, in addition to existing targets based on their individualvalue, the social commerce marketplace system also recommends targetsbased upon the aggregate long-term value of the market opportunityassociated with the target. In this embodiment, a determination is maderegarding how valuable the target's social graph and influence arewithin a market segment and the likelihood that they will generateadditional relationships that the online store can capitalize upon inthe future.

The social commerce marketplace system then automatically generatesrecommended tasks in step 3512 to make changes to product detail pages,widgets, store blogs, or the online store's home page to improve theonline store's SEO performance and subsequent traffic. In variousembodiments, these recommendations are based upon visitor activitywithin a social network environment, their associated purchase activity,online store content changes, and other information. Then, in step 3514,the social commerce marketplace system generates recommend leadgeneration tasks, including:

-   -   list of contacts to target    -   type of communication to use (e.g., tweets, email, posts, etc.)    -   type and structure of offers to make (e.g., packaging, bundling,        pricing, etc.)    -   time and date to send communications    -   frequency of re-marketing activities    -   recommended campaigns, including outlines of markets to target,        the type of campaign to run, and the duration of the campaign.

The social commerce marketplace system then generates recommended searchengine tasks in step 3516. In one embodiment, the social commercemarketplace system analyzes the competition and then recommends searchengine keyword bidding activities for each identified marketingopportunity. In another embodiment, a recommendation is generated todetermine marketing spend allocation to optimize various Search EngineMarketing (SEM) programs. Then, in step 3518, the social commercemarketplace system generates recommended pricing and offers that shouldbe created and presented to each market segment or individual visitor.In various embodiments, the social commerce marketplace system analyzescompetitive factors for each market opportunity segment and recommendsoptimized pricing and discount structures to optimize conversion rates,revenue and margins for each segment.

In step 3520, the social commerce marketplace system analyzescompetitive factors (e.g., lower competition, more demand, etc.) foreach market opportunity segment and then recommends specific ratings andreviews to associate with each product to optimize conversation andrevenue uplift. Then, in step 3522, the social commerce marketplacesystem identifies markets and market segments that have arbitrageopportunity, which are then used to generate a list of recommendedmarket tasks that capitalize on the arbitrage opportunities. Examples ofmarket arbitrage opportunities include:

-   -   high demand|low adoption rates    -   high demand|low sales penetration rates    -   high demand|lack of competitive vendor pricing    -   shifts in buying patterns    -   high demand|low inventory availability    -   time-of-product in a market

In one embodiment, the social commerce marketplace system performs ananalysis to determine if there is an opportunity (e.g., based uponprojected revenue or margin) to liquidate products to a specific market.In another embodiment, the social commerce marketplace system performsan analysis to recommend the type of marketing campaigns to executewithin a specific market. In yet another embodiment, the social commercemarketplace system performs an analysis to recommend whether or not theonline store should create a micro-site store for a specific marketopportunity. In still another embodiment, the social commercemarketplace system performs an analysis to recommend ‘local’ physicallocations to open a Flash ‘pop-up’ store based upon a local marketopportunity.

Then, in step 3524, the social commerce marketplace system tracks adspend and response rates across radio, television, and web media togenerate recommendations for the optimal allocation of ad spend. In oneembodiment, the social commerce marketplace system monitors ad spendsfor a specific product or product category to determine on-linemarketing and merchandising tasks to capitalize on the ad influence todetermine which products to sell, where (e.g., region, location, etc.)to sell them, and at what pricing point. In step 3526, the socialcommerce marketplace system then generated recommendations regardingwhat types of product to stock according to their anticipated sales ratesuch that various online stores can optimize their inventory levels toachieve higher net margins for a given market segment or opportunity.

The social commerce marketplace system then generates recommendations instep 3528 regarding which products to sell, which products to bundle,the price of a product, and the discount to apply, based upon thevisitor's context or intent and the market opportunity analysis. In oneembodiment, the social commerce marketplace system recommends whichproducts to market to a specific market segment. In another embodiment,the social commerce marketplace system recommends which related productsto offer or present to visitors based on the current product they areviewing and their market opportunity context. For example, a particulartype of hair product may be presented, according to the user's localmarket trends and demand.

Then, in step 3530, the social commerce marketplace system analyzesprocurement demand within predetermined markets and market segments todetermine areas of opportunity. Based upon each opportunity, the socialcommerce marketplace system generates recommendations regarding whichproducts to bid, pricing and packaging. After the recommended tasks havebeen completed, the social commerce marketplace system re-executes theSEO algorithm in step 3532 to update financial prediction as well asrecommended store tasks. A determination is then made in step 3534whether to end product and store performance optimization operations. Ifnot, then the process is continued, proceeding with step 3504.Otherwise, product and store performance optimization operations areended in step 3536.

FIG. 36 is a generalized flowchart of the performance of social commercestorefront valuation operations as implemented in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, social commercestorefront valuation operations are begun in step 3602, followed by theselection of a target social commerce storefront in step 3604 forvaluation. Then, in step 3606, social graph information associated withthe owner of the target storefront is retrieved. As used herein, socialgraph information refers to information that describes the onlinerelationship between a plurality of users. The social graph informationis then analyzed in step 3608 to determine the identity, and associatedsocial site history, of the users in the owner's social network. In oneembodiment, the social commerce marketplace system authenticates tomultiple third party social networking sites to retrieve the users'social identity and social site history.

Then, in step 3610, a digital worth score is generated for the owner ofthe target storefront owner and all users within their social graph. Asused herein, a digital worth score refers to a numeric value, or set ofvalues, associated with a predetermined user's social influence. Invarious embodiments, a digital worth score is derived from a user'ssocial influence. As likewise used herein, social influence broadlyrefers to the level of influence a user of a social networkingenvironment is capable of exerting upon a predetermined market segment.In various embodiments, the financial value of the associatedpurchase(s) of one or more predetermined products or product classes isused to determine the digital worth score. The individual digital worthscores are then processed in step 3612 to generate an aggregate digitalworth score.

Then, in step 3614, social commerce information related to the socialcommerce storefront is retrieved. In various embodiments, the retrievedinformation includes forecasted traffic rates associated with the valueof the target social commerce storefront's key words, the value of itsmerchandize and services, and corresponding advertising. The retrievedsocial commerce information is then processed in step 3616 with theaforementioned aggregate digital worth score to generate a socialcommerce valuation value. In one embodiment, the social commercevaluation value comprises a net present value (NPV) familiar to those ofskill in the art.

Social commerce storefronts that are comparable to the target storefrontare then identified in step 3616, followed by comparing the comparingthe social commerce valuation value of those storefronts that have beensold to the social commerce valuation value of the target storefront instep 3620. The potential monetary value of the target storefront is thendetermined in step 3622 by selecting the social commerce valuation valueof the most comparable storefront that has been sold. In one embodiment,an average of the respective social commerce valuation values of aplurality of comparable storefronts is used to determine the monetaryvalue of the target storefront. A determination is then made in step3624 whether to end social commerce storefront valuation operations. Ifnot, then the process is continued, proceeding with step 3604.Otherwise, social commerce storefront valuation operations are ended instep 3636.

The present invention is well adapted to attain the advantages mentionedas well as others inherent therein. While the present invention has beendepicted, described, and is defined by reference to particularembodiments of the invention, such references do not imply a limitationon the invention, and no such limitation is to be inferred. Theinvention is capable of considerable modification, alteration, andequivalents in form and function, as will occur to those ordinarilyskilled in the pertinent arts. The depicted and described embodimentsare examples only, and are not exhaustive of the scope of the invention.

For example, the above-discussed embodiments include software modulesthat perform certain tasks. The software modules discussed herein mayinclude script, batch, or other executable files. The software modulesmay be stored on a machine-readable or computer-readable storage mediumsuch as a disk drive. Storage devices used for storing software modulesin accordance with an embodiment of the invention may be magnetic floppydisks, hard disks, or optical discs such as CD-ROMs or CD-Rs, forexample. A storage device used for storing firmware or hardware modulesin accordance with an embodiment of the invention may also include asemiconductor-based memory, which may be permanently, removably orremotely coupled to a microprocessor/memory system. Thus, the modulesmay be stored within a computer system memory to configure the computersystem to perform the functions of the module. Other new and varioustypes of computer-readable storage media may be used to store themodules discussed herein. Additionally, those skilled in the art willrecognize that the separation of functionality into modules is forillustrative purposes. Alternative embodiments may merge thefunctionality of multiple modules into a single module or may impose analternate decomposition of functionality of modules. For example, asoftware module for calling sub-modules may be decomposed so that eachsub-module performs its function and passes control directly to anothersub-module.

Consequently, the invention is intended to be limited only by the spiritand scope of the appended claims, giving full cognizance to equivalentsin all respects.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implementable method executing on a processor for estimating the monetary value of a virtual storefront in a social commerce environment, comprising: processing a first set of social graph data associated with a first social media user to identify a plurality of second social media users, the first social media user associated with a first social commerce storefront, the plurality of second social media users associated with a second set of social graph data; processing the first and second sets of social graph data to generate a first digital worth score and a plurality of second digital worth scores; processing the first and second digital worth scores to generate an aggregate digital worth score; retrieving social commerce data associated with the social commerce storefront; processing the aggregate digital worth score and the retrieved social commerce data to generate a first social commerce valuation value; identifying a second social commerce storefront comparable to the first social commerce storefront, the second social commerce storefront comprising a second social commerce valuation value; performing comparison operations to compare the first social commerce valuation value to the second social commerce valuation value to generate a potential monetary value for the virtual storefront.
 2. The computer-implementable method of claim 1, wherein the product catalog data corresponds to a subset of the purchasable products.
 3. The computer-implementable method of claim 1, wherein the product catalog data is processed to generate widget data, wherein the widget data is provided within a user interface window by a widget.
 4. The computer-implementable method of claim 1, wherein: the social data is processed to generate social graph data; the social graph data is processed to generate keyword data and theme data; the keyword data and the theme data is processed to identify a subset of the product catalog data; and the subset of the product catalog data is provided to the user.
 5. The computer-implementable method of claim 1, wherein the product catalog data is associated with a campaign.
 6. The computer-implementable method of claim 1, wherein: the product catalog data is associated with social commerce content data; and the social commerce content data is concurrently provided to the user with the product catalog data. 